As you get a bit older, you will realize that things are not as what you once believed, at least for some of us, and then question why you were so naïve to think so at one point in your life.
Taking a harder look!
For humanity to survive, more and more people need to take a hard look and be more critical of modern geopolitical dynamics, particularly the roles played by the U.S., Israel, and NATO. Nations, especially fledgling nation states, should start distancing themselves from these entities, as they are now engaging in actions contrary to their proclaimed original purposes.
Specifically, take NATO’s stated mission—historically to maintain peace and security—and contrast this with its more recent involvement in numerous conflicts, which the discerning person can only view as promoting war rather than peace. It is like the reference to previously given from Fahrenheit 451 which reinforces this perspective. In Ray Bradbury’s novel, there is a dystopian reversal of roles, where firemen, who were once responsible for extinguishing fires, now start them by burning books.
This metaphor suggests that institutions, like NATO, may have strayed from their original, mutual defence and peacekeeping purposes and are now engaged in activities contrary to their founding missions, such as destabilization, war, and blatant aggression. It is even dangerous these days to discuss such topics openly, given the ‘modern social media’ and so-called free expression environment, whereby dissenting or controversial political opinions can sometimes invite scrutiny with implications for one’s career and personal life. Even the UN is not living up to its billings, mostly due to the veto power of the US over anything that could bring about some semblance of stability in the world.
At least for those who want to dig deeper, and can turn to alternative media, which is still possible, there are some voices in the wilderness that can open your eyes as to what is going on with NATO and the current state of world affairs. For instance, Dr. Gabrielle Krone-Schmalz, a German intellectual and former journalist, recently gave a highly informative talk at the “37. Pleisweiler Gespräch”.
Dr. Krone-Schmalz used to work as a Moscow-correspondent for Germany’s largest public broadcaster, ARD, and was also a Professor for Media Science, and has emerged as one of the fiercest critics of Germany’s foolish policies vis-à-vis Russia.
She is one of the people who can and does publicly lecture on the true origins of the ongoing warfare in Europe. She and a few others are demonstrating that some Europeans and Americans are actually aware and do actually know what is going on and just ”how reckless the current political and media elite are.”
Don’t play with matches!
As the NYT recently reported, “World leaders face global turmoil at the U.N” describing how World Leaders face difficult times and challenges during the 79th meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Calls to end the Middle East conflict and wars in Ukraine and Sudan were expected to dominate the weeklong conference, all goals that still look completely out of reach.
In keeping with the Fahrenheit 451 metaphor, António Guterres, the secretary general, said in his opening remarks that “a powder keg risks engulfing the world.” This is now only too obvious with the wholesale attack on Lebanon by Israel, out of the purported need for defence, or deflection from the Israeli failure to destroy Hamas in Gaza, and also how much of the Israeli border region with Lebanon has been depopulated due to Hezbollah making these regions unsafe to live for Israeli settlers, as a direct result of the ongoing genocide of Palestinians, which may soon be extended to the West Bank and beyond.
And now, escalating cross-border volleys of missiles fired by Israel and by Hezbollah in Lebanon have raised the threat of a multi-front war in the Middle East. All the while, so attention and resources, war materials and funding, are not diverted – and not to change course, Biden has backed Israel to the full, with unconditional support. Which is only natural for the one-time president who is as desperate, perhaps even more so, than other leaders to save their own hides at the price of innocent blood and massive destruction and widespread destabilization.
Moreover, it is no coincidence that Benjamín Netanyahu, the Israeli PM, who likes to use colourful posters and depictions of short fuses of bombs ready to explode as a ploy. He uses such scare tactics to prolong his own political future (perhaps survival) as the situation delays criminal prosecution for an range of crimes. Justice is still being held in abeyance while the conflagration continues and the rate of escalation increases on many fronts and spins out of control.
Threat of worse to come
With all that is happening, and the threat of worse to come, it would be easy to forget that Israel is also facing a genocide case brought by South Africa—which the Zionist lobby and US politicians would like to see disappear, as they know only too well who butters their bread.
These conflicts are an only too convenient distraction from the fact that US politicians are being bankrolled by outsiders at the expense of world peace and security.
South Africans have an absolute advantage is understanding what is going on, with president Ramaphosa reminding the world community at the UN how Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian people were “a grim continuation of more than half a century of apartheid.”
“We know what apartheid looks like,” said. “We lived through apartheid. We suffered and died under apartheid. We will not remain silent and watch as apartheid is perpetrated against others.”
The rest of the world knows too, or should, that what enable for countries to get away with such violations and trash the much-touted ‘rules based international order’, with NATO expansion by destabilization and coups, and not only in the case of Ukraine in 2014, is the fact that the “rules-based order” is a sham, the rules change depending on what the US and its European partners find convenient, such as the constant, and incredibly hypocritical, claims of “disinformation” and “election interference” that the countries of NATO fling at any alternative viewpoint.
Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!
The US State Department, USAID, and many others are complicit in many crimes and disinformation by manipulating the truth as to how “Israel Deliberately Blocked Humanitarian Aid to Gaza”, based on the conclusion of two governmental entities. Such revelations should come as no surprise given that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is involved in covering up such violations of basic standards of decency, notwithstanding international law, and spewing blatant lies is his forte.
Apparently, based on media coverage, both USAID and the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration produced two separate reports this past spring concluding that Israel was deliberately blocking much-needed humanitarian aid from Palestinian civilians in Gaza, which under US law should have led to the suspension of US weapons supplies.
However, Blinken dismissed these findings, as did the rest of the headless cohort known as the Biden administration and its spin doctors, who understand that the Wars of Choice must go on, for now and for as long as necessary for financial gain and political expediency.
The unabated manipulation of truth by western governments, especially the U.S. and Israel, to maintain political power and prolong ongoing and avoidable conflicts, using Netanyahu like scare tactics and the blocking of humanitarian aid to Gaza are new lows in the long list of western crimes.
It should be mentioned, however, that Global leaders and media are also complicit in this, in tandem, creating the very useful distractions and spin which perpetuate wars for financial and political gain—especially short term political survival and which party stays in office in the USA.
It is hoped, however, that world leaders are starting to tear up the script, a good example is the recent speech by Turkey’s president Erdoğan at the UN General Assembly on 24th September where he said bluntly:
“Along with children in Gaza, the United Nations system is also dying, the truth is dying, the values that the West claims to defend are dying, the hopes of humanity to live in a fairer world are dying one by one,”
Erdoğan went on to point out the elephant in the room:
“Those who are supposedly working for a ceasefire continue to send weapons and ammunition to Israel behind the stage, so that it can continue its massacres. This is inconsistency and insincerity”
We can only hope that others follow his example, and point out that the western Emperor has no clothes. Unfortunately, his trusted and tricky tailors are none other than Jake Sullivan, Victoria Nuland, and Antony Blinken, and we know how that story ends—not so good for the King and the taxpayers.
Seth Ferris, investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”
