On May 16, Sweden and Finland announced an end to decades of neutrality, proclaiming their intention to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its escalating conflict with Russia.
Less than three weeks later, Stockholm, Sweden’s capital, has been turned into a naval garrison with the arrival of a US amphibious assault battle group, consisting of the assault ship USS Kearsarge, the dock landing ship USS Gunston Hall, the guided-missile destroyer USS Gravely and the command ship USS Mount Whitney.
Standing on the deck of the Kearsarge, a warship so large it would be classified as a carrier in any Navy besides the United States’, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley declared his intention to make the Baltic Sea, in the words of the New York Times, a “NATO lake.”
Sweden had remained officially nonaligned since the Napoleonic wars in the early 1800s, having remained neutral in both the First and Second World Wars.
Now, in the span of just weeks, the country has been turned into a new front of the US war with Russia, its cities not only hosting a massive US-NATO military presence, but, just as ominously, targeted by Russian long-range weapons systems.
By pushing for the accession of Finland and Sweden as de facto members of NATO, the United States has opened up a second front in its war against Russia, turning the entire Baltic coast into a powder keg.
The arrival of the ships was part of the BALTOPS 22 exercise, involving, according to NATO, “Fourteen NATO allies, two NATO partner nations, over 45 ships, more than 75 aircraft, and approximately 7,000 personnel.” The UK sent HMS Defender, the destroyer that in June 2021 sailed into waters around the Crimean peninsula, triggering a standoff that led to the dropping of bombs by Russian forces in the ship’s path.
US officials made clear that the exercise was to be seen entirely within the framework of the current conflict with Russia.
“In past iterations of BALTOPS we’ve talked about meeting the challenges of tomorrow,” said Vice Adm. Gene Black, commander Naval Striking and Support Forces NATO (STRIKFORNATO) and the US Sixth Fleet. “Those challenges are upon us–in the here and now.”
Using the war in Ukraine as a pretext, the US has sought to double NATO’s land border with Russia through the inclusion of Finland.
The US has put into motion plans, years in the making, to turn the entire region into a front line in the war against Russia. This threatens a repetition, on an even grander scale, of the manner in which Ukraine, following the 2014 coup, was transformed into a US/NATO proxy, armed with billions of dollars in weapons.
This turn of events has had horrifying consequences for the people of Ukraine, tens of thousands of whom have died and millions of whom have been displaced as a result of this year’s war.
With this development, the sweeping goals of the US/NATO war effort are becoming increasingly clear. They have gone far beyond the aims, first announced by Ukraine in 2021, of regaining Crimea through military means. The United States and NATO seek to seize full control of the Baltic and Black Seas, as part of the drive to dismantle Russia altogether.
In a widely cited article published by The Atlantic, Casey Michel, a fellow at the Hudson Institute think tank founded by nuclear war advocate Herman Kahn, approvingly quoted the 1991 proposal by Defense Secretary Dick Cheney to carry out “the dismantlement not only of the Soviet Union and the Russian empire but of Russia itself, so it could never again be a threat to the rest of the world.”
Michel concludes: “Rather than quash Russia’s imperial aspirations when they had the chance, Bush and his successors simply watched and hoped for the best. We no longer have that luxury. The West must complete the project that began in 1991. It must seek to fully decolonize Russia.”
By mooting the “dismantlement” of Russia, the US media is sending a message: The aim of the war is not just the overthrow of the present government, but the systematic destruction and carve-up of Russia and the hiving off of its strategic mineral and petrochemical resources.
Since signing a $40 billion weapons package for Ukraine on May 21, the United States has announced an additional $700 million in weapons, as well as the deployment of M109 self-propelled artillery, Harpoon anti-ship missiles, and medium-range missiles capable of striking targets 50 miles away.
Over the weekend, Russia carried out airstrikes on tanks in Kiev, which Moscow said were provided by NATO members. The airstrikes were launched by aircraft over the Caspian Sea, demonstrating Russia’s capability to strike targets hundreds of miles away.
Last week, Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev strongly implied to al Jazeera that Russia would carry out strikes against NATO territory if the weapons being supplied by the US and NATO were targeted inside Russia.
“If … these weapons are used against Russian territory, then our armed forces will have no other choice but to strike decision-making centers,” Medvedev declared. “Of course, it needs to be understood that the final decision-making centers in this case, unfortunately, are not located on the territory of Kiev.”
It is impossible to escape the conclusion that the United States would welcome an attack like the one described by Medvedev, which would allow it to remove all remaining restraints on the conduct of the war.
While the geostrategic and economic interests of US imperialism are a major factor in the conflict, the reckless character of the US-NATO policy cannot be understood solely through the lens of geopolitics.
The American ruling class needs a permanent state of war as part of an effort to divert internal social tensions outwards and to enforce a fictional “national unity.” It is now clear that the Biden administration’s ending of the “forever war” in Afghanistan was part of a redeployment and refocus on waging war against Russia and China.
At the same time, the transformation of the “War on Terror” into “great power conflict” entails and requires an escalation of the assault on the working class. All available social resources not taken up by the bailout of the rich must be diverted to the instruments of war. The massive sums allocated by Congress must be paid for by the working class, particularly through attacks on social programs and other government expenditures.
Over the weekend, both the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, house organs for the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively, published editorials demanding cuts to social entitlement programs. The Journal demanded that millions of people be purged from Medicaid, the health insurance program for the poor. The Washington Post, in an apparent reference to Jonathan Swift’s satirical proposal to solve poverty through cannibalism, called for a “modest” reduction in Social Security benefits.
But the austerity measures proposed by these newspapers is only the beginning. The American ruling class’s project of global conquest entails a massive restructuring of social relations aimed at making the working class bear the burden of the crisis of capitalism. At the same time, the intensification of the class struggle that is the corollary of expanding war reveals the social force that must be mobilized against war, the working class.
The struggles emerging by workers at workplaces throughout the country for wage increases commensurate with soaring prices must be armed with a program to end a war that is rapidly spiraling out of control and threatening human civilization with destruction.
Originally published in WSWS.org
U.S. congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) denounced the U.S. political system as an “oligarchy” on Friday, resuming the long-dormant class-war rhetoric that first attracted so many young voters to her campaign in 2018.
“When you look at the fact that our elections are bought, that corporations and… powerful corporate lobbies have more say in our legislation than everyday people, we are living in oligarchy that has its democratic moments,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, often popularly mentioned as AOC, declared in a video posted to Facebook.
The self-styled democratic socialist railed against a “presidency that’s not determined by popular vote” and a Senate where “tens of millions of people more can vote for one candidate, one party, and still be in the minority,” as well as a House of Representatives that “gets gerrymandered to all hell once every 10 years in order to ensure an outsize minority rule.”
“It is becoming increasingly difficult for people to defend the stance that we live in a democracy, in a true one,” AOC lamented.
The U.S. government is formally a republic, not a democracy, and the presidency has never been determined by popular vote. Ocasio-Cortez’s complaints about Senate representation are likewise built into the country’s system of government – each state is represented by two senators, no matter how large or small the population.
Earlier in the same video, Ocasio-Cortez called Congress a “corrupt institution” and remarked that it was “really wild” and “difficult” to “try and be a normal person surrounded by so much decay and moral emptiness that frankly transcends party.”
While the video began as an indictment of congressional inaction on gun violence, it quickly broadened into a lament on how despite there being “so many different areas and issues where all of us agree… Congress still cannot get their s**t together!”
Both houses of Congress are controlled by the Democratic Party and President Joe Biden is a Democrat. However, that still does not seem to be enough to push through the legislative agenda supported by the party’s own voters.
Ocasio-Cortez attempted to separate herself from the legislative masses, however, complaining that as long as the Democrats think “there is some level of horror that is going to convince Republicans to change their minds,” mass shootings will keep happening.
“I donot want to be one of those ding-dongs that just tells you to vote harder,” she said, saying that “people treat Congress like it’s some kind of incumbency protection racket. These seats do not belong to us.”
Ocasio-Cortez is up for re-election in November. Since taking office in January 2019, she has largely toed the party line, voting for increased military budgets and backing a party leadership that opposes many of the policies she supports, such as Medicare for All and student loan forgiveness.
AOC’s Fear About U.S. Democracy
In an earlier interview in last February AOC expressed fear about the U.S. democracy.
A Real Clear Politics report (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Very Real Risk” We Will Not Have A Democracy In 10 Years, February 14, 2022, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2022/02/14/alexandria_ocasio-cortez_very_real_risk_we_will_not_have_a_democracy_in_10_years.html#!#:~:text=Rep.%20Alexandria%20Ocasio-Cortez%20%28D-NY%29%20questioned%20the%20viability%20of,think%20we%20will%3F%22%20David%20Remnick%20asked%20the%20Congresswoman.) said:
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) questioned the viability of democracy in the United States in an interview with ‘The New Yorker’ on Monday.
“You used a phrase earlier in the midst of this, ‘if we have a democracy 10 years from now.’ Do you think we will?” David Remnick asked the Congresswoman.
“I think there is a very real risk that we will not,” Ocasio-Cortez responded. “I think what we risk is having a government that perhaps postures as a democracy and may try to pretend it is, but isn’t. So what we have is the continued takeover of our democratic systems in order to turn them into undemocratic systems in order to overturn results that a party in power may not like.”
“You have the complete erasure and attack on our own understanding of history to replace history with institutionalized propaganda,” AOC said. “There are so many impulses to compare this to somewhere else. And there are certainly some comparisons to make with the rise of fascism in post-World War I Germany. Often, people like to make these comparisons but you really don’t have to look further than our own history. Because what we have is a uniquely complex past that we have walked.”
“The question that we’re really facing is: Was the last 50 to 60 years after the Civil Rights Act just a mere flirtation that the United States had with a multiracial democracy that we will then decide was inconvenient for those in power? And we will revert to what we had before, which, by the way, wasn’t just Jim Crow but also the extraordinary economic oppression as well?” AOC asked.
AOC’s comment questioning the viability of democracy in 10 years was in the print interview with ‘The New Yorker’ published on Monday:
NEW YORKER: You had some political experience before you were elected, but it was from some distance. You were not a member of Congress. You were not “in the room.” What do you see in the room? What is it like, day to day, being a member of this institution, which, I have to say, from outside, looks like a shit show?
AOC: Honestly, it is a shit show. It’s scandalizing, every single day. What is surprising to me is how it never stops being scandalizing. Some folks perhaps get used to it, or desensitized to the many different things that may be broken, but there is so much reliance on this idea that there are adults in the room, and, in some respect, there are. But sometimes to be in a room with some of the most powerful people in the country and see the ways that they make decisions—sometimes they are just susceptible to groupthink, susceptible to self-delusion.
NY: Sketch it out for us. What does it look like?
AOC: The infrastructure plan, if it does what it’s intended to do, politicians will take credit for it ten years from now, if we even have a democracy ten years from now. But the Build Back Better Act is the vast majority of Biden’s agenda. The infrastructure plan, as important as it is, is much smaller. So we were talking about pairing these two things together. The Progressive Caucus puts up a fight, and then somewhere around October there comes a critical juncture. The President is then under enormous pressure from the media. There is this idea that the President cannot “get things done,” and that his Presidency is at risk. It is what I find to be just a lot of sensationalism. However, the ramifications of that were being very deeply felt. And you have people running tough races, and it is “he needs a win.” And so I am sitting there in a group with some of the most powerful people in the country talking about how, if we pass the infrastructure bill right now, then this will be what the President can campaign on. The American people will give him credit for it. He can win his Presidency on it. If we do not pass it now, then we’ve risked democracy itself.
Only 23 days after the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) killed Palestinian-American Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh on May 11, they have once again killed another journalist. As reported by the National Press Club Journalism Institute in Washington, 31-year-old journalist Ghufran Harun Warasneh was shot by IDF soldiers on June 1 while being questioned at an Israeli checkpoint in Area B near Hebron at the entrance of the al-‘Arrub refugee camp.
The camp, first established in 1949 in the aftermath of the Nakba (catastrophe) by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), has since 1967 been under Israeli occupation and today houses more than 10,000 displaced Palestinians.
Warasneh was killed while on her way with a friend to her new job she was about to start as a radio presenter at Dream, a local news agency in Hebron. Ironically, it was reported in Middle East Eye (MEE) that her first assignment was a report on murdered Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh.
Israeli media reports stated the shooting occurred when Warasneh attempted to stab a soldier and the soldiers opened fire to counter a “terrorist threat.” Eyewitnesses however disputed the statement indicating she did nothing wrong. Her brother Mohammad reported that she had been “shot twice to her left side, in her armpit and chest” and was allowed to “bleed out” for 20 minutes when a responding Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance was held up at the checkpoint.
This is not an unfamiliar story that ambulances are delayed or not allowed to pass checkpoints by IDF soldiers when attempting to assist Palestinians requiring transport to a hospital for their injuries. This inhumane practice of disallowing or delaying medical help is a normal situation Palestinians endure daily living under Israeli occupation. Ghufran later died in the hospital due to the catastrophic nature of her injuries.
Middle East Eye (MEE) reported that, “After her body was prepared for burial, her family and neighbours carried Warasneh back to her to final resting place, having to pass the spot where she was killed. There, a group of Israeli soldiers were waiting for them. The funeral was attacked as soldiers tried to prevent its passing, firing stun grenades, tear gas and beating the pallbearers.” Her brother Mohammad was also quoted in the same article as saying that, “Abu Akleh was a journalist. My sister was a journalist. Abu Akleh was killed on the job. My sister was killed on her job.”
In January of this year after reporting on a pro-Palestinian march, Warasneh was jailed for three months having had her camera equipment confiscated and destroyed in the ongoing concerted effort by the IDF to silence and intimidate journalists to keep them from covering the occupation while suppressing press freedom.
Without international pressure to conduct an unbiased, impartial, comprehensive and transparent investigation into her death, it would be highly unlikely that results by Israeli authorities would find fault with the IDF. Going by the usual Israeli playbook, a narrative will be created that accuses the person killed of being complicit in their own death. Following the usual Israeli-biased proforma investigation, the victim would be accused of provoking the use of force by soldiers and their resultant death as “justified” due to the victim’s actions.
The targeted killing of Shireen Abu Akleh and now the wanton killing of Ghufran Harun Warasneh amounts to an open season of killing journalists by IDF forces, moving yet another step forward unabated. Thus far, this latest killing elevates the count to 45 of mostly Palestinian journalists killed by the IDF since 2000.
(This article has previously appeared in Nuzeink.)
Phil Pasquini is a freelance journalist and photographer. His reports and photographs appear in the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Pakistan Link and Nuze.ink. He is the author of Domes, Arches and Minarets: A History of Islamic-Inspired Buildings in America.
The World was shocked by the recent deliberate killing by an Israeli sniper of veteran Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. However over 50 journalists have been killed by Apartheid Israel in the last 2 decades. Careful analysis reveals that Apartheid Israel leads the World by far in terms of “average number of journalists killed per 10 million of population per year”. Self-respecting journalists world-wide must report this shocking fact.
Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh (1971-2022) worked as a reporter for Al Jazeera for 25 years, and was one of the foremost reporters in the Middle East for her decades of reportage on the Apartheid Israeli-occupied Occupied Palestinian Territories [1, 2].
The International Federation of Journalists has reported that 2,658 journalist were killed in the last 30 years [3]. However even the routinely pro-Zionist Western media were shocked by the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh because she was an American journalist (albeit a Palestinian-American journalist), a relatively young woman, a very prominent reporter on Palestine and the Middle East, and because the killing was evidently an expert public execution by a Jewish Israeli employee of the serial war criminal Apartheid Israeli government. Al Jazeera responded thus “Israeli occupation forces assassinated our beloved journalist Shireen Abu Akleh while covering their brutality in Jenin this morning” [2].
Miko Peled (anti-racist Jewish Israeli writer, son of an Israeli general, and author of “The General’s Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine” and “Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five” ) concluded: “Israel’s announcement that it will not pursue an investigation into the killing of famed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was not surprising. The specific reasons it gave to justify the decision make little difference. However, one thing is certain: It is highly unlikely that the killing of a journalist like Shireen Abu Akleh was the decision of a lone soldier or a commander on the ground. Abu Akleh was well known and well respected. She was clearly identifiable as a non-combatant and a journalist who posed no threat to Israeli forces. She had been in similar situations before and knew how to take the necessary precautions, including wearing a helmet and a bulletproof vest. She had to be shot by a well-trained sniper, and their identity must be known to the Israeli authorities” [4].
Mainstream American CNN in a very detailed report on the shooting killing of Shireen Abu Akleh and the wounding of a fellow journalist near a tree (now called the Journalist Tree in Jenin), quotes a firearms expert stating “From the strike marks on the tree it appears that the shots, one of which hit Shireen, came from down the street from the direction of the IDF troops. The relatively tight grouping of the rounds indicate Shireen was intentionally targeted with aimed shots and not the victim of random or stray fire” [5].
The Zionist-subverted New York Times responded equivocally but quoted the conclusion of CNN: “CNN and other news organizations have begun their own investigations. After reviewing video footage, witnesses’ accounts and audio forensic analysis of the gunshots, CNN reported that the evidence suggested that “Abu Akleh was shot dead in a targeted attack by Israeli forces.” The witnesses and videos, it said, provided new evidence “that there was no active combat nor any Palestinian militants near Abu Akleh in the moments leading up to her death”… The Palestinian Authority, Israel and the United States would do well to agree on an independent investigator to determine who shot Ms. Abu Akleh and establish whether she was a target because of her work as a journalist. She served as a model of courageous, honest reporting for many aspiring journalists, including many women. The best tribute to her life and work would be to make sure that her death does not vanish in the fog of hatred and recrimination but serves to guarantee the safety of all journalists who seek to pierce that fog” [6].
However the Zionists immediately commenced downplaying the atrocity. Indeed The Age newspaper (Melbourne), the leading quality Mainstream daily newspaper in Australia, published a long letter from a fervent Zionist claiming “that for a quarter century, Abu Akleh reported from West Bank clashes in a press-emblazoned flak jacket and helmet, like most sensible war journalists, and had never been shot only makes a stronger case that this was an accidental shooting” (Letters, The Age, 29 May 2022).
This is rather like saying that George Floyd (1973-2020) had previously not been mortally attacked over nearly 47 years, and that accordingly his suffocation to death over 9 minutes and 29 seconds by a policeman was accidental. Or indeed, it is like saying that because Gandhi (1869-1948) had not been shot for 79 years makes a case that his shooting death was accidental.
I sent the following letter to The Age to correct what it had published that incorrectly argued that journalists are safe in Israeli-occupied Palestine, and that this was an accidental shooting (indeed the opposite is true in both respects).
LETTER. Dear etc,
The Age (29/5) published an extraordinarily offensive and obfuscatory Zionist assertion: “that for a quarter century, [Shireen] Abu Akleh reported from West Bank clashes in a press-emblazoned flak jacket and helmet, like most sensible war journalists, and had never been shot only makes a stronger case that this was an accidental shooting”.
The Age is obliged to report the following facts in the interests of truth, journalists, their readers, free speech, journalism and an informed Australian democracy, especially as outstanding Australian journalist Julian Assange faces death in a US prison for truth-telling.
According to the International Federation of Journalists 2,658 journalist were killed in the last 30 years. In that period the average population of the World was 6,541.9 million, this indicating an average of 0.135 journalists killed annually per 10 million of population.
According to the Palestinian Journalism Syndicate, Israel has killed more than 50 Palestinian journalists since 2001. In that period the average population of Israel plus Palestine was 11.4 million, this indicating an average of over 2.19 journalists killed annually per 10 million of Subjects by Israel, or 16.2 times more than for the World.
Yours sincerely, Dr Gideon Polya [contact details].
Brendan Ciaran Browne, “The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh a fatal sign of sign of Israel’s control ”, The Irish Times, 16 May 2022: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/killing-of-shireen-abu-akleh-a-fatal-sign-of-israel-s-control-1.4878879 .
International Federation of Journalists, “White Paper on global journalism”, IFJ, 2020: ”, https://www.ifj.org/fileadmin/user_upload/IFJ_white_book__part_1.pdf . END LETTER.
As far as I know my letter was not published but I subsequently published these key statistics in a leading humanitarian web magazine, Countercurrents [7].
Amy Watson of Statista has provided statistics of journalists killed in the 5-year period of 2016-2021 for the World and for 10 countries ranked in descending order of journalists killed in the last 5 years [8]. I have estimated the average population in 2016-2021 for these entities from UN Population Division data [9]. From this data one can calculate for this period the ”average number of journalists killed per 10 million of population per year”.
Mexico: 47 journalists killed/125.3955 million population -> 0.750 killed per 10 million per year.
*Afghanistan: 47 killed/ 36.671 million -> 2.563 killed per 10 million per year.
*Syria: 42 killed/17.749 million – > 4.733 killed per 10 million per year.
India: 18 killed/ 1,345.078 million -> 0.027 killed per 10 million per year.
*Yemen: 18 killed/28.162 million -> 1.278 killed per 10 million per year.
*Iraq: 17 killed/ 37.8975 million -> 0.897 killed per 10 million per year.
*Pakistan: 16/210.1595 million -> 0.152 killed per 10 million per year.
Philippines 15/105.847 million -> 0.283 per 10 million per year.
*Somalia: 13/14.845 million -> 1.751 per 10 million per year.
Colombia: 9/49.202 million -> 0.366 per 10 million per year.
Total of journalists killed in the above 10 countries: 242
Other countries: 77 killed
World: 319 killed/7,587.298 million -> 0.084 per 10 million per year.
To this list we can add Israel-Palestine (2001-2021) and Occupied Palestine (2001-2021) (assuming that Palestinian journalist deaths were confined to the Occupied Palestinian Territories):
*Israel-Palestine: over 50 killed/11.4 million [10] -> over 2.190 killed per 10 million Israeli Subjects per year.
*Occupied Palestine: over 50 killed/4.056 million [10] -> over 6.164 killed per 10 million per year.
Note: * variously denotes US Alliance violation, bombing, devastation and/or occupation of the country.
This data can now be systematically analyzed:
(1). The initial Statista ranking based on simple numbers of journalists killed in 2016-2021 is flawed. Clearly we should consider the per capita metric of “average number of journalists killed per 10 million of population per year”. Thus populous India ranks equal 4th with Yemen in terms of simple numbers of journalists killed in 2016-2021, whereas it ranks lowest in the list, and indeed 3.1 times lower than the World, in terms of ”average number of journalists killed per 10 million of population per year”. Thus on a per capita basis India is safer for journalists than most countries in the World.
(2). Apartheid Israel tops the ranking by “average number of journalists killed per 10 million of population per year” that yields the following order: Occupied Palestine, over 6.164; Syria, 4.733; Afghanistan, 2.563; Israel-Palestine, over 2.190; Somalia, 1.751; Yemen, 1.278; Iraq, 0.897; Mexico, 0.750; Colombia, 0.366; Philippines, 0.283; Pakistan, 0.152; World, 0.084; India, 0.027. On a per capita basis, the killing of journalists by Apartheid Israel in Occupied Palestine leads the World, and is 73.4 times greater than for the World as a whole. In contrast, India scores 3.1 times lower than the World. The present data shows that Apartheid Israel leads the World by far for killing journalists
(3). The Statista country ranking only lists 10 non-European countries – but 6 have been grossly and violently violated by the US Alliance this century. I have noted the 8 countries/entities variously invaded, devastated, occupied and bombed by the US Alliance this century with an asterisk (*). The rich, European US Alliance countries – the Anglosphere (the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), Apartheid Israel and NATO – are internally peaceful but this century (and variously in previous centuries) have violently and indeed genocidally imposed their will on other countries. Thus, as estimated in 2015, 32 million Muslims have been killed by violence, 5 million, and by imposed deprivation, 27 million, in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9/11 false flag atrocity that killed 3,000 people [11, 12]. My own country, US lackey Australia, has participated in all post-1950 US Asian wars, atrocities that have been associated with about 40 million Asian deaths from violence and war-imposed deprivation [13-18]. The excessive killing of journalists in these horribly violated countries is not unconnected with those horrible violations by the US Alliance.
[4]. Apartheid Israel’s world leading killing of journalists is a smoking gun for other appalling Zionist atrocities. By killing Palestinian journalists Apartheid Israel not only kills and intimidates, it thereby also hampers the telling of the Awful Truths about Zionism, Israeli apartheid and the ongoing Palestinian Genocide. In 1880 the inhabitants of Palestine totalled 500,000, 90% Muslim and 10% Christian. There were about 25,000 Jews, half of them immigrants. The WW1 onwards, century-long Palestinian Genocide under the British and thence under genocidally racist Zionist settler-colonialists has been associated with 2.2 million Palestinian deaths from violence (0.1 million) and imposed deprivation (2.1 million). In contrast 4,000 Zionist invaders have been killed by Indigenous Palestinians since 1920. In the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) the Zionists expelled 800,000 Indigenous Palestinians, ethnically cleansed 530 villages, seized 78% of Mandated Palestine, and killed about 10,000 Palestinians. In 1967 a now nuclear-armed Apartheid Israel attacked and seized territory of all its neighbours in the Naksa (Setback), expelling a further 400,000 Arabs. Today there are 15 million mostly impoverished Palestinians comprising 8 million Exiled Palestinians (forbidden to enter the land continuously inhabited by their forbears to the very start of the Agrarian Revolution 10,000 years ago); 5.2 million Occupied Palestinians (deprived of all human rights specified in the 30 Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and highly abusively confined under brutal Occupier military rule in ever-dwindling West Bank ghettoes or the blockaded and bombed Gaza Concentration Camp – they are excluded from voting for the government ruling them (apartheid), and their per capita GDP of $3,400 is 14 times less than that of Israelis, $46,400); and nearly 2 million “lucky” Israeli Palestinians who are able to vote but only as Third Class citizens under 65 Nazi-style, race-based, discriminatory laws [19-32].
(5). Israeli killing of journalists is the tip of massive racist Zionist censorship of Western journalists, editors, politicians, academics, commentators and writers. Former Labor premier of New South Wales and former Foreign Minister of Australia, Bob Carr, has described how Labor is slavishly beholden to a ruthless Zionist Lobby even though the Zionists continually falsely besmirch them, and support their bottom-of-the-barrel, extreme right wing Coalition political opponents [33]. The US became beholden to the Zionists in the 1960s after Apartheid Israel had acquired nuclear weapons, and John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy had failed to get Zionists declared agents of a foreign state [34, 35 ]. In Zionist-subverted US today one third of Joe Biden’s Cabinet are Jewish Zionists, and the remainder are “moderate” Christian Zionists (as opposed to the fervently Pentecostal Christian Zionists of the Trump Republicans) [36]. While numerous anti-racist Jewish intellectuals are resolutely critical of the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Western Mainstream media variously censor or white-wash the nuclear terrorist, genocidally racist, and grossly human rights-abusing conduct of Apartheid Israel. A part explanation for this huge moral discrepancy is that the American 60% of the world’s 30 biggest media companies have a disproportionately high Jewish Board membership. Jews and females represent 2% and 51%, respectively, of the US population but average 33% and 19%, respectively, of Board members of the top 18 US media companies [37]. In the UK, Zionists used the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism to politically destroy Jeremy Corbyn, the most ant-racist British Labour leader ever. All the 34 IHRA member countries are European, most support nuclear terrorism, and many have histories of involvement in appalling genocides. The IHRA is anti-Arab anti-Semitic (by falsely defaming anti-racist Palestinian, Arab and Muslim critics of Apartheid Israel), anti-Jewish anti-Semitic (by falsely defaming anti-racist Jewish critics of Apartheid Israel), holocaust denying (by ignoring all WW2 holocausts other than the WW2 Jewish Holocaust, and ignoring about 60 other holocausts), and has been condemned by over 40 anti-racist Jewish organizations [38-41].
(6). The persecution of journalists and the appalling treatment of Julian Assange. According to UNESCO: “Promoting the safety of journalists and combatting impunity for those who attack them are central elements within UNESCO’s support for press freedom on all media platforms. On average, every five days a journalist is killed for bringing information to the public. Attacks on media professionals are often perpetrated in non-conflict situations by organised crime groups, militia, security personnel, and even local police, making local journalists among the most vulnerable. These attacks include murder, abductions, harassment, intimidation, illegal arrest, and arbitrary detention” [42]. The Australian and World hero and journalist, Julian Assange, has been abusively imprisoned for a decade in the UK for revealing a huge mass of American secrets.
Julian Assange, the world’s best known journalist, is now facing abusive life imprisonment and death in an American prison for the asserted crime of truth-telling [43]. Julian Assange is being cruelly punished for publishing a huge body of secret US documents, many of which reveal US war crimes. Julian Assange’s father, John Shipton has acknowledged [44-46] that I have been estimating how many millions of people have perished in 21st century US wars from Africa to South Asia [11-16] . However as a citizen of internally peaceful democracy Australia I remain unmolested, and have only been rendered effectively “invisible” in my own country (like other “leftist” truth-tellers) by US- and Zionist-beholden Australian “gate-keepers” and by mendacious and cowardly Mainstream journalist, editor, politician, academic, and commentariat presstitutes. Julian Assange’s real crime in the eyes of the Americans was to violate the sanctum of US secret documents. The serial war criminal Americans are evidently paranoid about further dreadful secrets being revealed through the release of secret US documents.
Unfortunately, a succession of cowardly and unprincipled US lackey Australian governments have refused to support Julian Assange [47] who could be simply freed by a phone call from the Australian Labor PM Anthony Albanese to the UK Tory PM Boris Johnson. If Julian Assange is delivered to the US then I predict a massive global reaction to defend the freedom of speech of journalists, and ranging from calls to remove the Union Jack from the Australian flag to Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the UK and the US. US lackey Australia has joined an anti-China AUKUS (Australia, UK and US) nuclear terrorist military alliance, but if it cannot even protect the human rights of just one (1) outstanding, truth-telling, Australian journalist, Julian Assange, then decent Australians will ask what use is it?
Final comments
Australian novelist Peter Carey cogently observed that “I keep on thinking about the role of the medial generally in this and how the media is always so continually hysterical about people lying and not telling the truth. And if I really think there’s a big problem in our society today, it’s that the media is not telling the truth to people and they know what it is. If you really want to know what’s happening [in] the world, you go out and get drunk with journalists and they will tell you what isn’t in the papers. So they’re living – these guys are living every day with the reality of a proprietor, say, or a corporation who owns them will not permit them to tell what they know to be true” [48, 49].
One faintly hopes that Mainstream journalists in the Zionist-subverted West will at least stand up for their murdered colleagues and find the courage to report that Apartheid Israel leads the World for killing journalists.
We must all remember outstanding Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh for a courageous and ethical life brutally and criminally terminated by Apartheid Israel like the lives of so many other journalists murdered in Palestine. All decent people, and especially fellow journalists, must (a) speak out against the persecution and killing of journalists, (b) tell everyone they can that Apartheid Israel leads the World for killing journalists, and (c) urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against nuclear terrorist, serial war criminal and genocidally racist Apartheid Israel and all its supporters. This must be the ongoing, living memorial to Shireen Abu Akleh and her fellow martyred journalist colleagues.
References
[1]. “Shireen Abu Akleh”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shireen_Abu_Akleh .
[2]. Zena Al Tahhan, “Shireen Abu Akleh: Al Jazeera journalist killed by Israeli forces”, Al Jazeera, 12 May 2022: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/11/shireen-abu-akleh-israeli-forces-kill-al-jazeera-journalist .
[3]. International Federation of Journalists, “White Paper on global journalism”, IFJ, 2020: ”, https://www.ifj.org/fileadmin/user_upload/IFJ_white_book__part_1.pdf .
[4]. Miko Peled, “The assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh: Who gave the order?” , Green Left, 25 May 2022: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/assassination-shireen-abu-akleh-who-gave-order .
[5]. Zeena Saifi, Eliza Mackintosh, Celine Alkhaldi, Kareem Khadder, Katie Polglase, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Abeer Salman, “’They were shooting directly at the journalists’: New evidence suggests Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in targeted attack by Israeli forces”, CNN, 26 May 2022: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/24/middleeast/shireen-abu-akleh-jenin-killing-investigation-cmd-intl/index.html .
[6]. Editorial, “Who killed journalist Shireen Abu Akleh?”, New York Times, 3 June 2022: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/03/opinion/shireen-abu-akleh-journalist-killed.html .
[7]. Gideon Polya, “Review: “Aemilia Lanyer As Shakespeare’s Co-Author”: Radical Feminist Literary Revision”, Countercurrents, 3 June 2022: https://countercurrents.org/2022/06/review-aemilia-lanyer-as-shakespeares-co-author-radical-feminist-literary-revision/ .
[8]. Amy Watson, “Most dangerous countries for journalists worldwide from 2016 to 2021, by deaths” , Statista, 18 January 2022: https://www.statista.com/statistics/267871/number-of-journalists-killed-by-region/ .
[9]. UN World Population Prospects 2019: https://population.un.org/wpp/DataQuery/ .
[10]. Brendan Ciaran Browne, “The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh a fatal sign of sign of Israel’s control ”, The Irish Times, 16 May 2022: https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/killing-of-shireen-abu-akleh-a-fatal-sign-of-israel-s-control-1.4878879 .
[11]. Gideon Polya, “Paris Atrocity Context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya221115.htm .
[12]. “Experts: US did 9/11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .
[13]. Gideon Polya, “US-imposed Posr-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide”, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2020.
[14]. Gideon Polya in Soren Korsgaard et al., “The Most Dangerous Book Ever Published: Deadly Deception Exposed”, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2020.
[15]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count, Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, 2nd edition, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2021.
[16]. Gideon Polya, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 1998, 2008 that is now available for free perusal on the web: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ; 3rd edition awaiting publication.
[17]. “Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home .
[18]. Gideon Polya, “Vietnamese, Afghan & Iraqi Genocides: Mainstream media ignore war crimes of Colin Powell”, Countercurrents, 22 October 2021: https://countercurrents.org/2021/10/vietnamese-afghan-iraqi-genocides-mainstream-media-ignore-war-crimes-of-colin-powell/ .
[19]. Gideon Polya, “Australia must stop Zionist subversion and join the World in comprehensive Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all its supporters”, Subversion of Australia, 15 April 2021: https://sites.google.com/site/subversionofaustralia/2021-04-15 ] .
[20]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel Excludes Occupied Palestinians From All Provisions Of The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights”, Countercurrents, 20 May 2012: https://countercurrents.org/polya200512.htm .
[21]. Susan Abulhawa, “Israel’s “nation-state law” parallels the Nazi Nuremburg Laws”, Al Jazeera, 27 July 2018: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/israel-nation-state-law-parallels-nazi-nuremberg-laws-180725084739536.html .
[22]. “Discriminatory laws in Israel:, Adalah, https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index?page=4 .
[23]. Justin McCarty, “Palestine population: during the Ottoman and British mandate period”, Palestine Remembered: 8 September 2001: http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story559.html .
[24]. “Historic population of Israel/Palestine”: http://palestineisraelpopulation.blogspot.com.au/ .
[25]. Gideon Polya, “Letter to the Australian taxpayer-funded ABC & SBS media re anti-Arab & anti-Jewish anti-Semitism and false reportage about Occupied Palestine:, Dissident Voice, 10 February 2021: https://dissidentvoice.org/2021/02/letter-to-the-australian-taxpayer-funded-abc-and-sbs-media-re-anti-arab-anti-jewish-anti-semitism-and-false-reportage-about-occupied-palestine/ .
[26]. Gideon Polya, “Refutation Of Mainstream-Accepted Racist Zionist Lies Behind Israel ‘s Gaza Massacres And Palestinian Genocide”, Countercurrents, 26 July, 2014: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya260714.htm .
[27]. Gideon Polya, “Israeli-Palestinian & Middle East conflict – from oil to climate genocide”, Countercurrents, 21 August 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/08/21/israeli-palestinian-middle-east-conflict-from-oil-to-climate-genocide/ .
[28]. Gideon Polya, “End 50 Years Of Genocidal Occupation & Human Rights Abuse By US-Backed Apartheid Israel”, Countercurrents, 9 June 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/06/09/end-50-years-of-genocidal-occupation-human-rights-abuse-by-us-backed-apartheid-israel/ .
[29]. Gideon Polya, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights & Palestinians. Apartheid Israel violates ALL Palestinian Human Rights”, Palestine Genocide Essays, 24 January 2009: https://sites.google.com/site/palestinegenocideessays/universal-declaration-of-human-rights-palestinians .
[30]. Gideon Polya, “70th anniversary of Apartheid Israel & commencement of large-scale Palestinian Genocide”, Countercurrents, 11 May 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/05/11/70th-anniversary-of-apartheid-israel-commencement-of-large-scale-palestinian-genocide/ .
[31]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel’s Palestinian Genocide & Australia’s Aboriginal Genocide compared”, Countercurrents, 20 February 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/20/apartheid-israels-palestinian-genocide-australias-aboriginal-genocide-compared/ .
[32]. Gideon Polya, “Israelis kill 10 times more Israelis in Apartheid Israel than do terrorists”, Countercurrents, 1 March 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/03/01/israelis-kill-ten-times-more-israelis-in-apartheid-israel-than-do-terrorists/ .
[33]. Bob Carr, “The Israeli Lobby and Labor”, Pearls & Irritations, 1 June 2022: https://johnmenadue.com/the-lobby-and-labor/ .
[34]. Gideon Polya, “Dual Israeli citizenship & Zionist perversion of America, Australia, India & Humanity”, Countercurrents, 30 July 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/07/30/dual-israeli-citizenship-zionist-perversion-of-america-australia-india-humanity/ .
[35]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel buries serial war criminal, genocidal racist & serial nuclear terrorist Shimon Peres”, Countercurrents, 1 October 2016: https://countercurrents.org/2016/10/apartheid-israel-buries-serial-war-criminal-genocidal-racist-and-nuclear-terrorist-shimon-peres/ .
[36]. Gideon Polya, “Zionist-subverted America: Jewish Zionists are one third of the Biden Cabinet”, Countercurrents, 27 January 2022: https://countercurrents.org/2022/01/zionist-subverted-america-jewish-zionists-are-one-third-of-the-biden-cabinet/ .
[37]. Gideon Polya, “Zionist subversion, Mainstream media censorship”, Countercurrents, 9 March 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/03/zionist-subversion-mainstream-media-censorship/ .
[38]. Gideon Polya, “UK racist Zionists falsely defame UK Labour Party in support of democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel”, Countercurrents, 10 August 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/08/uk-racist-zionists-falsely-defame-uk-labour-party-in-support-of-democracy-by-genocide-apartheid-israel/ .
[39]. “Working definition of antisemitism”, IHRA, 19 July 2016: https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/news-archive/working-definition-antisemitism .
[40]. Gideon Polya, “US-backed IHRA Definition Of Antisemitism Is Anti-Arab Anti-Semitic & Anti-Jewish Anti-Semitic”, Boycott Apartheid Israel, 9 March 2021: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/2021-03-09
[41]. Jewish Voices for Peace, “First ever: 40+ Jewish groups worldwide oppose equating antisemitism with criticism of Israel”, 17 July 2018: https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/first-ever-40-jewish-groups-worldwide-oppose-equating-antisemitism-with-criticism-of-israel/#english .
[42]. UNESCO, “Safety of journalists”: https://en.unesco.org/themes/safety-journalists .
[43]. “Julian Assange”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange .
[44]. Paul Gregoire, ““Until we win”: Assange’s father John Shipton on the home run tour for Julian”, Sydney Criminal Lawyers, 15 March 2021: https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/until-we-win-assanges-father-john-shipton-on-the-home-run-tour-for-julian/ .
[45]. Andrew Buncombe, “Julian Assange’s father says “greatest fear is that they will take him to the US and break him for revenge””, The Independent, 1 January 2021: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/julian-assange-father-wikileaks-court-b1781104.html .
[46]. John Shipton, “International Human Rights Day: Bring Julian home: John Shipton”, YouTube, 13 December 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cerK_BZJI80 .
[47]. Gideon Polya, “Craven US lackey Australia betrays Australian & world hero Julian Assange & free journalism”, Countercurrents, 13 April 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/04/craven-us-lackey-australia-betrays-australian-world-hero-julian-assange-free-journalism .
[48]. “Mainstream media censorship”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/home .
[49]. “Mainstream media lying”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/ .
Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, notably a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds”. He has also published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (2007, 2022) and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (1998, 2008). He has recently published “US-imposed Post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” (2020), and “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions” (2020). For images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/
The Indian Express report recently about a government-owned stadium being used by an IAS Officer to walk his dog after athletes practicing there were asked to vacate early, attracted so much public ire that the man and his wife, a fellow bureaucrat were transferred out with great rapidity. Obviously, the media coverage had a role to play in bringing to public attention a small instance of the power and privilege of being a part of the elite class of civil servants in independent India.
The incident reminded me of the book “ The Postmaster” by the Pakistani Novelist Saad Ashraf. The book traces the life of one Rasool Ghulam, born shortly after the death of Queen Victoria in Delhi, and ends with his experiences as a now-retired officer and a citizen in the new state of Pakistan. Through his life story, the author also compares the state of governance in colonial India – exploitative as per the colonial government’s policies; but for the individual citizen, a civil service that was manned by people who were humane, approachable, and incorruptible. The book ends with Ghulam, now a retired man with health problems being asked to pay a petty bribe for the free medicines that he was entitled to as part of his retirement benefits in independent Pakistan. Of course, the novel happens to be set in Pakistan, the experiences could well be that of an Indian in India too.
According to Percival Spear, a British historian who taught in the famous St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, the greatest contribution of the British Raj to the Indian sub-continent was the creation of a professional civil service- the Indian civil service (ICS). For a large part of its history, it was White, British, and Christian, and in its composition, largely homogenous.
After independence when IAS, a national civil service was created it was a conglomeration of war service recruits, emergency recruits, and direct recruits. In course of years, promotion from State civil service took place. Further, there was special recruitment into the service in the mid-fifties of the last century consisting of people slightly higher in the age group. From the mid-sixties, those repatriated from the armed forces also joined IAS. Now there is also lateral entry coming from different disciplines.
The Constitution provided for reservation for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe. In addition, it consisted of people drawn from different linguistic groups, religions, sects, and castes. From the above, it would be clear as to how heterogenous the composition was in the service which was considered as the successor service of ICS. All these factors meant that the spirit de corps and the unwritten honour code of the original civil service gradually eroded.
The civil services have been imbued with a sense of mystique, right from the time of the examinations and the preparations and the coaching that usually goes into it. Every year, the toppers are announced with great fanfare and coaching classes, some of which have a reputation that is decades old begin advertising their classes months ahead. In fact, in several places, a whole ecosystem survives around the civil service exam drama… teachers, centres, paying guest accommodations, cafes and canteens, photocopy shops, and many others. Not just ordinary people but even the aspirants themselves think that those who manage to ‘crack’ these exams are the crème de la crème of the country, and begin to believe in their ‘inherent superiority’
A question the needs to ask is what the civil service, based on a competitive examination-based selection, has delivered in 165 years of its existence, which could be delivered only by them and not by others, say promoted officers, academicians, or just common citizens? The answer is shocking nil. Indian companies, CEOs, managers, and innovators who have made a mark globally have never possibly even attempted civil services. In essence, the Indian administration still functions very much the same way it functioned when the British set it up. Its resources have changed; its mind and spirit remain the same. Not long ago, we had proper feudal lords who got their positions and titles through birth or sheer force of arms; the civil services have replaced them with ‘feudalism through exam’.
The anti-elite rhetoric expressed in such phrases as “Lutyens’ Delhi gang” or “Khan Market gang is disliked by many but the fact is that there is such a power elite who lived with a sense of entitlement whether or not they live in Lutyens’s Delhi or not or whether their favourite restaurant is at Khan Market. They are movers and shakers and a loose inorganic vote bank, and what they say, write, and think matters. Undoubtedly the reason why different regimes over the decades of whatever affiliation cultivate and try to win the approval of these elites in overt or covert ways.
In traditional and feudal societies, elite groups wield power based on social dominance characterised by caste, lands, religious discrimination, and other forms of socio-economic hierarchies. Such higher caste groups continue to take a large share of the political, administrative, and security sectors despite long exercises in “democratic governance”. The continuity of the caste structure is also related to class divisions as the upper castes who have had access to power and social status continue to be the beneficiaries of power and privileges.
Our civil servants have functioned (obviously there are honourable and wonderful exceptions) without any significant accountability or the need to justify their exalted positions. Why do those who have so much want more? Why do they behave so badly towards their fellow human beings, and why is their behaviour so widely accepted as ‘natural’? The ferocious sense of entitlement that the rich carry with them at all times has also helped to legitimise so many inequalities in India.
Every year, when the results of the civil services examination are announced, there is much rejoicing when the child of a rickshaw puller or someone who studied in government schools and did their homework by candlelight gets selected. While these achievements are definitely praiseworthy, decades of affirmative action policy do seem to have done much to dilute the inherent elitism; rather those selected seem to be sucked into the power elite and perpetuate the status quo.
Dr Shantanu Dutta , a former Air Force doctor is now serving in the NGO sector for the last few decades.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.