Tag: perpetual war

Amid Gaza’s Humanitarian Catastrophe, US Claims Israel is not Hindering Aid

The State Department Deputy Spokesperson, Vedant Patel repeatedly declined on Tuesday, after being pressed by reporters, to say if the criteria mentioned in the American letter had been met

The State Department announced on Tuesday that it has concluded that Israel is not hindering humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip and thus Tel Aviv is not breaching US law, Reuters news agency reported.

The declaration came on the day of a deadline previously set by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in a letter on October 13 for Israel to implement a set of steps within 30 days to attend to the dire humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.

The letter had warned that “failure to do so may have possible consequences on U.S. military aid to Israel.”

The US administration’s denial that Israel is impeding aid entry to the besieged enclave also coincided with a scorecard issued by eight aid organizations indicating that Israel has indeed failed to comply with a number of requirements.

The State Department Deputy Spokesperson, Vedant Patel repeatedly declined on Tuesday, after being pressed by reporters, to say if the criteria mentioned in the American letter had been met, Reuters said.  

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Violent Israeli raids hit Beirut suburb after massacre in Mount Lebanon

Violent Israeli airstrikes continued to rain down on the southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut, on 13 November, following a heavy night of continuous attacks on the area. 

“Enemy warplanes targeted, in the third raid on the southern suburb, a building near Al-Zahraa Broasted in Mshrafiyeh,” Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported at around noon on Wednesday. 

Israeli strikes targeted the Ghobeiry area and Haret Hreik several times during the morning hours. Buildings in Laylaki, Bir al-Abed, and at the Rawdat al-Shahidayn–Shiyah intersection were also hit.

Tel Aviv issued evacuation orders to Haret Hreik and Ghobeiry earlier on 13 November. Heavy and successive airstrikes had pounded the southern suburb overnight.

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NATO & Vaccines: The Twin Sacred Cows

On February 9, 1990, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker assured Mikhail Gorbachev that if the Soviet leader would cooperate with German unification, NATO would not expand “one inch eastward.” This was just one of many assurances of Soviet security made by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991.

On December 12, 2017, the National Security Archive at George Washington University declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents about these assurances. As the National Security Archive reported at this time:

The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels. 

The documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.” The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to believe.”

As we now know, the U.S. broke these assurances—a decision characterized by George Kennan, America’s chief architect of Soviet containment policy during he Cold War—as “A Fateful Error” in his Feb. 5, 1997 New York Times editorial.

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Israeli army ‘will not leave Gaza before 2026’: Report

The Israeli army is rapidly accelerating its plans to establish a permanent presence in the Gaza Strip, where it will likely remain until at least the end of 2025, according to a 13 November report by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper. 

“The work is progressing at full speed,” the newspaper reported. 

“Wide roads are being built, cellular antennas are going up, water, sewage, and electricity networks are going in, and of course, there are the buildings, some portable and others less so,” it added. 

These plans have included the systematic destruction of buildings across Gaza, with the aim of ensuring that resistance fighters cannot hide in them. 

Israeli forces, as part of their extermination and expulsion campaign in northern Gaza, have forced tens of thousands out of their homes to transform the area into a military zone. Haaretz confirms that many Palestinians have refused to leave, despite artillery shelling which targets areas that remain inhabited. 

The construction work and setting up of permanent outposts have not been limited to the north.

“According to the plan that is being carried out, the army is acting to hold no fewer than four large areas in different parts of the Strip. One of the most prominent of them is the Netzarim corridor,” Haaretz said. 

The Netzarim corridor, which cuts Gaza into two and prevents the return of displaced Palestinians to the northern strip, was established in the early months of the Gaza war and has since been transformed into an extensive military facility with detention centers and permanent housing for soldiers.

The Haaretz report adds that a “combat graph for 2025” has been distributed to troops in recent weeks. 

“The way it looks on the ground, the IDF won’t leave Gaza before 2026,” a brigade officer in Gaza told the newspaper. “When you see the roads being paved here, it’s clear that this isn’t intended for the ground maneuvers or for raids by the troops into various places. These roads lead, among other places, to the places from which some of the settlements were removed.” 

“I don’t know of any intent to rebuild them; that isn’t something we’re told explicitly. But everyone understands where this is going,” the officer added. 

Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported on 10 November that the Israeli army has established permanent military installations across Gaza aimed at setting up a long-term presence and splitting the strip into three separate zones. 

According to the report, the Israeli army plans to separate northern, central, and southern Gaza from each other. Several new land corridors have been established in recent months, including one which aims to cut off the northern cities Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia, and Jabalia from Gaza City. 

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US walks back threat to suspend Israel arms shipments as famine worsens in Gaza

The US government has confirmed it will not limit arms shipment to Israel despite worsening famine conditions in Gaza, walking back an official warning issued last month by top officials to “pressure” Tel Aviv into lifting its blockade.

State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters on 12 November that the progress to date must be “supplemented and sustained” but that “we at this time have not made an assessment that the Israelis are in violation of US law” by blocking the entry of food, water, and medicine for two million Palestinians.

“We are not giving Israel a pass,” Patel stressed, adding that “we want to see the totality of the humanitarian situation improve, and we think some of these steps will allow the conditions for that to continue progress.”

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Israel and the U.S. are interfering in Lebanese politics to oust Hezbollah — here’s why it won’t work

In his first speech as Secretary General, the new leader of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem, said that the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon had been meeting leaders of Lebanese political parties opposed to Hezbollah. According to Qassem, the ambassador was trying to convince them that Hezbollah’s collapse in the face of Israel’s offensive was imminent, urging the Lebanese parties to oppose Hezbollah. 

“You will never see our defeat,” Qassem said, addressing the ambassador, Lisa A. Johnson, directly and ignoring the Lebanese parties in question.

Two weeks earlier, a group of anti-Hezbollah parties gathered in the town of Maarab in Mount Lebanon, the headquarters of the Lebanese Forces — a far-right Christian party headed by its chairman, Samir Geagea. The parties in attendance issued a joint statement that indirectly blamed Iran for pushing Lebanon into a war it had no stake in, hijacking the decision of peace and war in Lebanon, and recruiting Lebanese citizens and using them as soldiers and “human shields.” The latter phrase was a veiled reference to Hezbollah, its social support base, and the people of southern Lebanon in general. The parties in Maarab also called for the election of a new president to the country.

Heading the meeting was Samir Geagea, a Maronite Christian known for his brutal suppression of Palestinian and Lebanese adversaries, including Christian rivals, during the Lebanese Civil War that took place between 1975 and 1989. He is also known for his collaboration with Israeli occupation forces in Lebanon after 1982 and for having spent 12 years in a Syrian prison on charges of collaboration with Israel.

Geagea has also been openly voicing his will to run for president of Lebanon, which under the Lebanese constitution must be held by a Christian Maronite. The president’s chair has been vacant for two years now, as the opposing political forces have failed to agree on a candidate. The president in Lebanon is elected by the parliament and thus needs a degree of consensus between represented parties, which has been absent since the latest president, Michel Aoun, finished his term in October 2022.

Aoun was an ally of Hezbollah and represented an important trend of Christian support for the resistance group in Lebanese politics since 2008. During his presidency, Hezbollah’s adversaries in Lebanon, like Geagea, continued to accuse the resistance group of taking over the state, especially during the height of the Syrian Civil War, in which Hezbollah was actively involved in defending the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad. After Aoun’s presidency, several political parties were unwilling to accept a president who would be close to Hezbollah and its allies. This presidential vacancy has extended to the current day.

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Ukrainian crimes in Ugledar revealed

Once again, Ukrainian troops have been reported committing crimes against Russian civilians in the Donbass region. A recent investigation has shown that Russian-speaking citizens in Ugledar have been severely harassed by Ukrainian soldiers, with cases of murder, beatings and public humiliation of the local residents.

A team of investigators led by Russian human rights activist Maksim Grigoriev published a report on November 11 exposing a list of crimes committed by the Ukrainian military and neo-Nazi militants in Ugledar, a coal mining town in the Donetsk People’s Republic that the Russians recently took control of.

According to Grigoriev, while Ukrainians controlled the town, the authorities lied about the true number of inhabitants, claiming that there were no civilians left in the area, when in fact more than 3,000 residents remained in their homes. As a result of this lie, large-scale shelling by the Ukrainian army was authorized, resulting in the deaths of several civilians.

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Veterans: Why we want Trump to keep Iraq withdrawal deal

The election is now behind us and the impacts on America’s foreign policy are emerging. One thing that shouldn’t change is our commitment to the deal reached between the Biden administration and the Iraqi government for a withdrawal of most U.S. forces from Iraq in 2025.

As veterans who served in Iraq, we are urging the new administration to stick to the agreed timetable and see to it that American service members are no longer risking their lives in Iraq.

Ian Robinson, Air Force: Iraq—my first deployment in 2003 feels like a distant memory, yet when I close my eyes, I can vividly picture the sand swirling along the endless road that stretches to the horizon. Sometimes, I can almost feel the scorching heat on my skin; it’s like standing in front of a hairdryer on its highest setting on the hottest day of summer, dusty and dirty. This land has endured a lifetime of conflict and carries a heavy weight of animosity, and our troops still remain stationed there. Iraq is a place where we have never truly belonged, and the most promising path toward future stability may lie in our departure, especially after all the time and money and lives we have spent there.

Laura Hartman, US Army: As a 2004 Iraq War veteran, I’ve seen the toll war takes on warfighters, families, and innocent civilians. War leaves lives shattered, deep moral injuries and genetic conditions that affect generations. After reporting a military sexual assault, I left our FOB only to meet with military lawyers. As a former VA psychiatric nurse, I saw the truth of war unfold through my patients’ pain. Suicide prevention and mental health treatment are shared responsibilities. After decades of lies, bloodshed and betrayal, I support a full withdrawal from Iraq. Focus on nation-building here at home. It’s time to demand political accountability for the consequences of war. Enough is enough.

Adam Jahnke, USMC: Iraq is a bitter memory for me. I was injured and lost two friends from my platoon. I served with 3rd Battalion 2nd Marines, an infantry Company, from 2005-2009, I made two deployments to Iraq in 2006, and 2008. This time was the “best” worst time of my life. The lack of sleep, operational tempo, and challenges of a combat deployment were drastic. Everyone to the right and left of me rose to the occasion and fought hard, for each other, the Marine Corps, and our country. However, many of us including myself now feel our sacrifice was for naught. The loss of life and of resources was wasteful. Many of us suffer lifelong issues with PTSD, TBI, and other health conditions related to our deployments, as we are left wondering: “what was our sacrifice in Iraq for.”

Brian Fay, Army: I enlisted in the Army in 2007 during the second surge into Iraq, but I didn’t deploy until late 2009. I remember earlier that year watching the news as President Obama signed an agreement to draw down troops and leave only a presence of “non-combat” troops to train and advise. I went to Iraq shortly after, wondering just what our mission would be. We had just spent the last year and half training for urban warfare.

Aside from a few missions we ran with the Iraq Police, there was little advising and assisting being done. For a year we went out every night on missions to prevent IEDs on critical supply routes and reacting to rocket and mortar attacks on our FOB. Every day, during my supposedly “non-combat” tour in Iraq, my life and the lives of the soldiers I was with were put in danger. And for what? The only thing the agreement that President Obama signed with Iraq accomplished was restricting our rules of engagement with the enemy and putting us in further danger. There is no such thing as troops being able to stay in a combat zone and not be in some sort of life-threatening danger every single day.

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Trump has a mandate to end the Ukraine War

While no single foreign policy issue commanded anything near voters’ concern for domestic challenges, the twin spiraling crises in Europe and the Middle East led a large swathe of the electorate to conclude that foreign policy is too important to be left to the technocrats.

President-elect Trump deftly exploited this lingering anti-establishment sentiment first by picking JD Vance as his running mate and then by defining himself against Harris — who did everything she could to advertise the Democratic party to anti-Trump neoconservatives, up to and including by christening Liz Cheney a core campaign surrogate — as the anti-war candidate.

The difficult but necessary work of resolving the Ukraine war, the most dangerous and destructive conflict on the European continent since 1945, now falls to the incoming Trump administration. But doing so requires coming to grips with, and rejecting, the shibboleths and superstitions that have characterized the established approach to Ukraine.

When diagnosing the crises facing U.S. foreign policy, it pays to consult the prior generation of American diplomats. As is well known, the Cold War exercised a disciplining effect on its American and Soviet figurants. The neck to neck nature of that rivalry, coupled with what both parties recognized as the catastrophic consequences of direct confrontation, meant that neither side was in a position to dictate to the other.

The two superpowers were bound to a shared logic of strategic caution that permitted and, indeed, necessitated competition on the margins but harshly discouraged an uncompromising “winner takes all” mentality on existential questions of war and peace.

This provided fertile ground for the development of a decision-making community eager to learn from their mistakes, obsessively grasping for even the most minute ways in which U.S. policy can be refined or reformed. It is not brute coercive force but rather a persistent open-mindedness, tempered by a nagging recognition and respect for the limits of American power, that produced such exertions of political genius as the long telegram and policy of detente that enabled the U.S. to contend on favorable footing with its Soviet competitor.

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The Man Who Can Help Trump Bring Peace to Korea

Columbia Professor of Genetics Joseph D. Terwilliger has an exceptional resume. Along with his post at an elite institution, he is an accomplished tuba player, speaks a multitude of languages, has traveled to nearly every country on Washington’s official enemies list, and served as translator for NBA legend Dennis Rodman when he traveled to North Korea to meet with Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un.

So, how did Terwilliger translate the conversation between two of the most fascinating people on the planet?

Part of the story involves his career as a geneticist. He spent years teaching at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. Unlike the perception most Americans have of North Koreans, Joe speaks highly of the people and paints a picture distinctly different from the Kim-run death cult that is often presented.

The other part involves Terwilliger making a $2,500 gamble. After Rodman made his first trip to North Korea, Joe saw an opportunity.

Terwilliger was in North Korea during Rodman’s first visit. He told the Libertarian Institute that he witnessed the students “[rethinking] their stereotypes about Americans” because Rodman was willing to say positive things about their country.

So, Joe won a game of HORSE against Dennis with a $2,500 silent auction bid. There, he and Rodman discussed a return visit to North Korea.

“[The] hope was to engage Kim Jong Un to try and build a relationship based on trust,” a mission Joe believes he was able to accomplish. “When we took the basketball players to [North Korea on Kim’s] birthday, [the supreme leader] remarked that we were the first Americans that ever kept their word.”

During Donald Trump’s first presidency, he showed a willingness to break with long-established policy in Washington, which has insisted that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear weapons before any talks can begin.

Of course, Kim would never give up his nuclear arsenal, as it serves as a deterrent to an attack from the United States. But that does not mean relations with the DPRK could not improve.

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