by Oui
Fri Jul 8th, 2022 at 08:05:35 PM EST
As I have written after the Summer of 2021 where the Biden administration was trying to gain new footing after the disaster of the Taliban conquering all of Afghanistan and the US and allies barely escaped unscathed from Kabul, reminiscence of the Vietnam War defeat and the escape by helicopters from the U.S. Embassy compound in Saigon. A traumatic experience for the generation of Joe Biden.
I do the write-ups as I see the situation unfold from a multitude of reports from press on the ground and the live reports from over half a dozen TV stations from diverse location around the globe. I call it as I see it.
World powers have never refrained from committing war crimes, intrusion on sovereign nations either by covert acts of sabotage and espionage or what we have seen since 911 the murders by drones and high-tech. Policy of regime-change is an irreconcilable with the founding of the United Nations during the Second World War and the ratification and signatories of the UN Charter.
Not UN Charter But US Charter Is Rule of the West
Crisis what Crisis??? | Oct. 21, 2021 |
The gas market is confronted with a fairly rapidly increasing demand for gas, but why does the supply not follow, Aad Correljé wonders.
Recently we have been taken by surprise by the gas crisis! As if the developments of the past period could not have been foreseen... Of course, the moment and the specific combination of the current circumstances cannot be predicted. But the fact is that in a market with the characteristics of the gas market, these kinds of price movements can always arise. Now we talk about compensation. But the question is rather how do we keep the calf away from the well before it drowns.
A series of causes have been identified for the current market excess. The loss of gas demand due to Corona, with low investments and a squeeze in gas production as a result. The gradual closure of Groningen. Shipping all LNG to Asia. The decrease in gas production in the North Sea and in the Netherlands. The high consumption in the spring. The Russians who do not deliver more than they are contractually obliged. Maintenance in the Norwegian system. And the gas storages that are not sufficiently filled.
And all in a situation where energy demand is rising again as a result of the economic recovery after Corona. It is important here that this happens synchronously in a large part of the world and also in Europe. In the Netherlands, this has a significant effect on gas demand, because our industry and horticulture are gas-fired. And when it comes to covering our need for electricity, we have to fall back on gas-fired power stations due to the closure of coal-fired power stations and lower wind and solar energy production.
The gas market is therefore confronted with a fairly rapidly increasing demand for gas, but why does the supply not follow? After all, in recent decades we have become convinced that in the free market, price will ensure that both gas producers and consumers will react rationally to shifts in supply and demand. And that they will therefore immediately produce and consume more or less according to the degree of scarcity, informed by the price in relation to their production costs or their usefulness as buyers.
United In Rightwing US Heritage Sort of Warmongers
'Progressives' Drinking Neocon Kool-Aid
John Mearsheimer and Noam Chomsky are amongst the 2% not buying into the war propaganda narrative as Europe and Peace has been corrupted by violent interventions across the globe in the last two decades.
European Union and the Nobel Peace Prize - 2012
The Nobel Peace Prize 2012 was awarded to the European Union
"for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and
reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe."
Through the first term of Joe Biden, his foreign policy of vengeance and Trump's MAGA opened the brutal Blitzkrieg across Europe where total lack of leadership and insight into history and a vision of the future has doomed coming generations. New Europe be damned! You refused to abide by the founding principles of the European Union and build an aggressive military alliance with the United States through NATO military command.
Western Media Bias and Hypocrisy In Politics
Russia-Ukraine war: Bias and Double standards of media is shameful
However, the global citizens and all the countries' leaders have been tensed in recent times on account of the war situation between Russia and Ukraine. The fact remains that we are being informed about the terrific situation by conventional media and social media. We have seen the aggression of Russia, the response from the Ukrainian people, and the activities of other global leaders.
Interestingly, the media's double standard has become a burning issue all over the world. In comparison to people suffering from wars in Yemen, Libya, Ethiopia, Palestine, and Syria, the Western media has portrayed Ukraine's suffering as "different" and labelled Ukrainians as "civilized."
We have seen conflict raging for decades in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Syria, Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh to save their lives, the mighty kings are dropping bombs to innocent Yemeni citizens, so the people from countries are not civilized? What about them? The media are avoiding them clearly.
David Sakvarelidze, a former deputy general prosecutor in Ukraine, was interviewed by the BBC, and he shared his thoughts, "This is really upsetting for me since I watch Europeans with blue eyes and blonde hair being slaughtered on a daily basis as a result of the missile attacks, helicopter attacks, and rocket attacks carried out by Putin's forces."
Oops! The people, then, with blue eyes and blonde hair, are bombing in the Middle East and Africa; this is not a big issue.
In addition, news coverage of mass Ukrainians protecting their country by preparing Molotov cocktails and arming themselves with state-issued machine guns has already been hailed as "heroic," and these individuals have been referred to as "freedom fighters."
....
There are countless additional aspects to examine, such as the fact that severe sanctions and the censorship of Russian media sources such as RT in Europe have not been commensurate with the Iraq invasion or the Saudi-led bombardment of Yemen, which has continued to this day.
When an NBC News reporter asked about how Poland's refugee policy has changed since the last refugee crisis from Syria, the reporter responded, "Actually, these are not Syrian refugees; rather, they are Ukrainian refugees from the neighboring country of Ukraine." In the sense that these are Christians, they're white, and they're very similar to people who live in Poland!
News of Israel's barbaric treatment of unarmed Palestinians is reported in almost all Western media in a somewhat different way. The use of force by the aggressors in their 'propaganda style' is largely concealed. All media use the words such as 'clash','conflict', and 'property dispute' in their news and leaders' conversations on the Palestinian-Israeli issue. It goes without saying that using this kind of 'passive voice' suppresses the 'cause' or 'target' of violence. Yet, now in the case of the Ukraine conflict, they are just using words like 'aggression', 'invasion', 'attack', 'kill', 'illegal step'. This is absolute hypocrisy, isn't it?
Determining Terrorism and war crimes
In the book, On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare, Noam Chomsky and Andre Vltchek, detail the Western world's bloody history of terrorism from the Second World War to the present day. However, those invasions and involvement in the affairs of other countries - think Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Iran, and Panama - are perceived as being directed against "uncivilized" populations. Ukraine has been described as "civilized."
The very experienced BBC interviewer didn't push back on this racist implied statement.
Propaganda in war to desensitize citizens to cruelty for worse to come. Following the principles of British war propaganda WWI, WWII, Syria and the war in Ukraine.
Careless Talk: Tensions within British Domestic Propaganda during the Second World War

Questionable Governmental procedures often hindered Britain's chance of winning the war. Incredibly meticulous plans for protecting the nation's art treasures, yet little preparation was made for the civil defence of its population. A catalogue of authoritarian blunders shows in frightening detail just how close Britain came to becoming a totalitarian state. Propaganda fed to the people bore scant relation to the facts, and dark forces like racism found a ready outlet in wartime society. Crime continued to flourish, and the class tensions in prewar society were often thrown into sharp relief. Careless Talk is a stimulating, unsentimental portrait of a nation at arms.
Boris Johnson has vandalised the political architecture of Britain, Ireland and Europe | The Guardian Opinion |

It seems rather apt that Boris Johnson pocketed a huge advance from a publisher for a book about William Shakespeare but never got round to writing it. Johnson's rise and fall hovers between cheap farce and theatre of the absurd. It has none of the grandeur of tragedy. The only line of Shakespeare's that came to mind at his political demise was the first bit of Mark Antony's elegy for Julius Caesar: "The evil that men do lives after them". If the good that Johnson did in his public life is to be interred with his bones, the coffin will be light enough. But the evil will weigh heavily on the coming decades.
This is what is so strange about Johnson's place in history. It is hard to think of a figure at once so fatuous and so consequential, so flippant and yet so profoundly influential. His reign was short - its malign hangover will last long. He was a politician so incompetent that he could not keep himself in office even with a thumping parliamentary majority, a sycophantic press and a cabinet specially selected for slavish self-abasement. Yet he has remade the political architecture of Britain, of Ireland and of Europe.
Johnson's dark genius was to shape Britain in his own image. His roguishness has made it a rogue state, openly defiant of international law. His triviality has diminished it in the eyes of the world. His relentless mendacity and blatantly self-seeking abuse of power have ruined its reputation for democratic decency. His bad jokes made the country he professes to love increasingly risible.
...
The worst aspect of this is his reckless sabotaging of the Good Friday agreement. It is possible to imagine that Johnson was smug enough to think that both British and EU political institutions were sufficiently robust to withstand his own cynical abuse of them.
...
He deliberately trivialised the problems of the Irish border, comparing it to the line between two traffic zones in London. He dismissed Northern Ireland as the tail that was wagging the Brexit dog - an irritating appendage, in other words. He played with the delusions of his admirers in the Democratic Unionist party, egging them on or abandoning them as the mood took him. He lied repeatedly about the meaning of the protocol he negotiated. He introduced legislation deliberately designed to make Northern Ireland a source of open-ended conflict with the EU.
...
On 1 July this year, Johnson tweeted that "25 years ago, we made a promise to the people of Hong Kong. We intend to keep it." The Chinese embassy in Dublin retweeted this with a reply: "2 years ago, we made a promise to the Northern Ireland Protocol (sic). We are determined to break it." The terrible thing is that the Chinese were, in this respect, right: Johnson's behaviour has given them license to ignore the obligations they entered into 25 years ago.
This is the level to which Johnson has reduced Britain on the world stage, making it fair game for the taunts of tyrants. Even while Johnson was doing good by supporting Ukraine, he was simultaneously giving Vladimir Putin grounds to believe that the west only pretends to believe in the rule of law. This descent is not just bad for the UK. It is bad for the whole democratic world.
Great Britain became the vanguard on provoking war with Russia at the behest of colonial ambition to oppress Russia into submission and Wester style democracy.
How Boris Johnson's secret visit to Kyiv became a PR masterstroke
After Brexit, Great Britain can take NATO forward in its wake sailing towards Indo-Pacific and confront the Chinese Empire. AUKUS and QUAD are the magic terms.
Qatar Partnership Delivery In 2024
Gasspeicher in Deutschland: So hoch ist der Füllstand