Britain’s rulers went to war, therefore, not to protect little Catholic Belgium, or so that small nations might be free, but in the selfish interests of a class that profited from privileges gained by governing an empire on which the sun was not supposed to set. In the process this class was entirely indifferent to the mass slaughter that inevitably ensued.
The US Empire, in its efforts to contain, and therefore dominate and control such a strategic and resource-rich region, is more than content to allow its reactionary and sectarian clients to incite the conflict necessary to subvert, fracture and divide the inevitable power a unified Middle East could claim: if only their progressive aspirations and unity were not repeatedly “set back” by Zionist occupation and manufactured antagonism.
The recent media coverage of severe floods in the UK demonstrates this assimilation and herd mentality of corporate media professionals about as well as any other topic today. No matter how extreme the weather, and how awful the hardships endured by ordinary people in the floods, the culpability of corporate-driven industrial ‘civilisation’, its inherent ecological unsustainability, and the urgent need for radical changes, must not be addressed in any meaningful way.
Suspicions are being raised in Geneva, Syria and among certain UN aid agencies in Homs and elsewhere that those they are trying to save from starvation, were ‘set-up’ to fail as a result of power politics and influences emanating from Washington and Tel Aviv.
Washington wants regime change in the Ukraine for one reason only; in the wider New Great Game in Eurasia context, that would be the rough equivalent of Texas defecting from the US and becoming a Russian ally.
The most interesting thing about these confrontations is watching Brand’s skilful manoeuvring as he refuses to allow himself to be intellectually sidetracked or cornered. It’s like watching an Olympic athlete. He has to use every skill in his considerable emotional and intellectual armoury: humour, matiness, intelligence, quick-wittedness, compassion, muted anger. So few of us have quite such a complete range of talents.
Public opinion in Western Europe is wrong to regard the Ukrainian crisis as a showdown between Westerners and Russians. In reality, Washington’s goal is not to push the country into the arms of the European Union, but to deprive Russia of its historical partners. To do this, the United States is prepared to ignite a new civil war on the continent
Each member state of the coalition has its own interest in this [Syrian] war and believes it can be satisfied, even though these interests are sometimes contradictory.
But the most important issues are economic: huge reserves of natural gas have been discovered in the south-eastern Mediterranean. The center of this deposit is near Homs in Syria (more precisely, at Qara).
Even when the balance is paid on time every month, credit card use imposes a huge hidden cost on users—hidden because the cost is deducted from what the merchant receives, then passed on to you in the form of higher prices.
Like most Koreans, the farmers and fishing families protested the senseless division of their nation between north and south in 1945 – a line drawn along the 38th Parallel by an American official, Dean Rusk, who had “consulted a map around midnight on the day after we obliterated Nagasaki with an atomic bomb,” wrote Cumings. The myth of a “good” Korea (the south) and a “bad” Korea (the north) was invented.
Those in Washington and Europe who wish to destroy Ukraine’s independence portray an independent Ukraine as a hostage of Russia, while a Ukraine in the EU is allegedly under the protection of the US and Europe. The large sums of money that Washington funnels into NGOs in Ukraine propagate this idea and work the population into a mindless frenzy. I have never in my life witnessed people as mindless as the Ukrainian protesters who are destroying the independence of their country.
Russia said on Feb. 12 it would veto a U.N. resolution on humanitarian aid access in Syria in its current form, denouncing the draft as an effort to lay a foundation for military strikes against President Bashar al-Assad’s government.
