Glad someone is appalled by the statements of Galloway (he's changed his tune a bit) and Ritter. I watched Ritter tell Nima Alkhorshid that the Iranians were going to cut a deal with the US re nuclear weapons and allow Americans to come in and monitor it even before the deal was struck. My jaw dropped. Nima kept a blank look on his face but much later he laughed and told Ritter he could not see Iran EVER inviting the US into their country again. It's like Ritter doesn't know what Iran went through to effect the Revolution or the Iran-Iraq War (which the US and Israel manufactured and kept going). I think Ritter is feeling side-lined and would love to be in the middle of things so his judgment is skewed towards wishful thinking. NONE of these commentators talk about how easy it would be to take out all the oil fields the US "protect". I think that's the fastest and easiest way to free Palestine, but of course Islam requires civilians be protected. I was rather turned off by Malouf blaming ALL Westerners--or was it all Americans--for what the US is doing in the Middle East. As though ordinary citizens actually have ANY power at all here. I understand his anger but it's counter-productive (and not entirely fair) right now. Anger among the powerless citizenry is leaking out, though, on an almost daily basis.
Ordinary citizens have great power but acquiesce at every turn, think MAGA and Trump as a supposed saviour for the US poor. This is oligarchs for the oligarchs by the oligarchs but is it realised? In the US where they think the Democrats are communists.
Re Ritter I have heard he is becoming unhinged due to his fear of being imprisoned for being a Russian influencer. Also he is an ex marine and the brainwashing that involves is permanent though his integrity is great but miscued.
I don't like the military at all. I think it's 100 years past its sell-by date. However, I have learned a great deal listening to Ritter about how the US military thinks. I especially appreciate all these retired and/or contrary high rank military and counter-intelligence and historical intellectuals expressing their honest opinions. I'm used to them saying what the 'system' wants them to say. I don't think Ritter's unhinged. I think he's been under a lot of stress for a long time. It's not fun and it does terrible injury to your nervous system. He needs to take care of himself, physically as well as psychologically. The CIA loves to break down people psychologically. That's mostly what they do. The military does brainwash, god knows. The ones who come back "sane" (I think) are psychopaths or possibly sociopaths. The ones who commit suicide over what they've participated in are sane. It's the ones who are not affected emotionally at all by their time in the military who freak me out. I am speaking of people who have been active duty in active war--not all the many military pen pushers, who are "nice guys", although I don't think joining the military is a very nice (or intelligent) thing to do.
If ordinary citizens have great power where are the arms we need? Let's take them up and go over to Israel and take care of business, shall we? Let's divert the billionaires' money to fill the pot-holes, increase wages, improve the schools (though I don't think you need money to fix what's wrong with our educational system), etc.
MAGA thinks Trump is their savior because they do not understand economics or politics and that is because Reagan totally destroyed our educational system quite on purpose. I don't think it was all that great but it used to be a lot better. Today I think you have to have a Master's degree to have an equivalent education in my generation (Boomer, sorry) to a BA. Today a high school diploma is not the equivalent to what it was in my generation. It's more equivalent to sixth or seventh grade. Maybe even lower. And Ph.D.'s are MAYBE the equivalent of an M.A. in years gone by. And advanced degrees teach you to teach. They don't teach practical skills or even to understand the world. I have a relative with a J.D. from a very highly respected university who cannot apply law to real world situations, which I suspect is the norm among attorneys.
MAGA are not the only people who believe in fairytales. So do college-educated liberals. We have lost our level of general education. My grandmother taught a one-room schoolroom in the Kansas prairies when she was 16. Her level of literacy was higher than most people I know who have advanced degrees. Part of that is cultural. The US has always been anti-intellectual. It's a fatal flaw. Not that intellectuals should run this place. But give credit where credit is due.
Americans don't understand communism at all. It's pathetic. They don't understand democracy, for that matter. And they don't value empathy anymore. If you want your kids to be empathetic, make sure they read lots of well-written, well-conceived fiction. You have to be heartless to steal someone else's country, culture, wealth, history, etc. The U.S. is probably number one in low levels of empathy. What amazes me about Gazans is their level of empathy. Their heart, in effect. Americans cannot compete with them in that. And it's not only Gazans.
Thanks Nosey appreciate the time taken for your response, what do you define as liberal as I am not from the states? Anti intellectualism is a growing problem today metastasising with the help of the GOP and the academic sell outs and MAGA leaders aka Steve Bannon etc similarly in other English speaking countries
The individual is also paramount in the US and it's history now encapsulated in libertarianism and patriotism of the leading capitalist state along side nationalism/nazism/balkanization of regions by colour revolutions and US NGO and Soros money. No history of society supporting it's needy also does not help and the cult of the entrepreneur aka Elon Musk being in power unelected in a supposed democracy.
Just some thoughts that make the states unique from parliamentary democracies of old mother England. Hahaha
Sorry, but I'm the wrong person to really answer this question as I am not American either--by birth or upbringing. I was born and raised in the M.E. (Syria, Lebanon and Iran). I have American relatives and am an American legally through my mother but I did not grow up here and she died when I was young so culturally I'm not as American as my accent would indicate. My definition of a liberal is an outsider's view of it. I still view the US as a foreign country in which I live in "exile", despite living here for 50 years now. Came here for college and felt very strongly that even well-meaning Westerners living in the M.E. hurt the countries they lived in so I stayed here. Liberals think they are compassionate and more insightful than lesser mortals, and tend to be (but not exclusively, obviously) White. If not White, they identify with Whites to a larger degree than they are willing to admit. Also they tend to be, but not always, college-educated. They tend to be middle-class at least. Privileged in many ways they don't want to admit. I suspect liberals understand all this about themselves but are uncomfortable about it so spend a lot of energy trying to prove to others they are not these things. Gaza has pretty well shown that liberals aren't liberal at all--not when it comes to Islam or Arabs or little brown brothers who are getting in the way of their economic and political desires. It has been horrific to me to learn that some of my very close friends use liberalism as a veneer almost as a protective overcoat. Underneath, their nakedness is pretty ugly. I am, of course, referring to their racism. I personally do not believe you can be a liberal if you are also racist which is why the US is, quite honestly, right of center even on good days, and there haven't been many of those in my lifetime.
I don't agree that the US is particularly individualistic. In fact, it is probably the most conformist country I've ever lived in. Even Britain allows and even values eccentricity. It's not allowed here. Express true individual eccentricity and you can easily end up locked up on a mental ward. Or in prison. The conformity in this society is a big reason why Americans bought the COVID Pandemic so easily. Also, it didn't hurt that Trump framed it as a Chinese thing. Racism towards Asians is still very much alive and well in this country. (It is the reason my father had to go to Iran for his first job out of grad school. Because of his Japanese ethnicity he was only allowed to be a farmworker or domestic servant in 1944 in the U.S.)
I think the US has always been anti-intellectual. So intellectuals are corralled into universities. It's something of a play pen or cushy prison. one of the economists I'm recently following points out that professors are not part of the laboring class. They are in a strange, otherworldly place in the economic system. And they cannot survive outside of it. In the university there is tremendous pressure to conform. You can so easily be blackballed in academia if you are a genuine individualist and independent thinker. This is what happened to genuinely independent medical people during the Pandemic. Pro-Palestinian academics were blackballed during Bush Jr.'s time. He even made a special office, Daniel Pipes was the first person to man it--he's a rabidly pro-Zionist racist, in case you don't know that name, and his job was to identify professors to fire and blacklist. People have forgotten about it, apparently. Intellectual political people were blacklisted back in the 1950's, in the 30's. I suppose to some degree they have been since the 1700's. The person at the State Department assigned to assess whether or not the US should support Israel was shoved out his office window for saying we would never stop regretting it. Forestall. I was evacuated on an aircraft carrier in the Sixth Fleet in the 1958 civil war in Beirut that was named for him. I find the irony extremely profound. How different the world would have been if he had: 1) not been murdered, 2) listened to. JFK wouldn't have been assassinated for the reasons he was, nor by the people who killed him, for one thing. We wouldn't be talking on a substack for another. Many millions would not have died as they have. So many brilliant political figures were thrown under the bus and we all--non-Americans included--lost so many opportunities because of it.
I have often wished we had representational parliamentary government as many European countries have, in the sense that each party would receive a representative percentage of officials from that party, depending on how the electorate voted. This would solve a lot of problems in this country. Of course, it seems that most countries who have this sort of representation also have remnants of the old nobility to prevent it from becoming as meaningful as it should be. Maybe not. Once I realized how racist Europe was after leaving the M.E. as a young adult, I lost interest in learning too much about it. I want equality far more than equity. But the power elite in any country will never "allow" that.
My main criticism of American culture is its focus on money and status. It destroys much of the good this culture and country could have done and represented. It has destroyed the political culture, the educational culture, the work culture, the arts culture, scientific culture. You name it, it screwed us up quite thoroughly. I find it infinitely boring.
But you have to ask a born and bred American these questions. I disliked the US when I first came here and was in terrible culture shock, and I still dislike a lot about it. Just as it is hard to love a father unreservedly who has raped your mother (for the record, mine did not), it is hard to love your legal country when you grew up witnessing its rape of your beloved adopted countries. I witnessed far too much of that and it hasn't stopped. Not one day in the last 50 years since I came here. Not one day. That is so pathetic and sad.
The curse of the post-colonialist, huh? We are increasingly the norm. But don't tell "them" that. God forbid.
Not coincidentally they are also present in Ukraine. The US recruited Nazi scientists and actually I read that Bush Jr. brought KGB to work in the US surveillance industry, too, in the early 2000's. Their racism and sense of racial/ethnic supremacy is quite common when you scratch people under the skin. And of course tendencies towards authoritarianism are not uncommon. Israel is on its way out, if that helps.
I find him unnerving: there’s a beseeching desperation and finality to all his pronouncements which suggests a fragility; the big rejection over Iraq probably traumatised him deeply😨
I read that it was Ritter himself who sifted the Iraqi sands to find 98% of all Saddam's previously-destroyed documented WMDs. If that's true, he'd rightly feel a deeply vested interest. But it seemed like he and the always available Iranian professor had Israel practically dead and buried months ago. I never believed that was the case.
He was the chief weapons inspector but finding WMDs when there weren't any, ummmmmm. False premise for the invasion of a sovereign country which is the Empires specialty as documented widely but still widely disseminated in the neo con mileau and apparently believed also.
Story I heard was from George Gallagher of course: Saddam destroyed all his shit and scattered it across the desert. Ritter (presumably led a team which?) identified 98% of inventory known to exist by the atomic energy inspectors agency. I've not known George to lie. I do love his dramatic performance and rare word usage and language mastery. His delivery and speech patterns. His attention getting dead air pauses to think a bit before he next speaks Those fucking awesome hats and suits. Did you see him cut down that punk Australian attack journalist from Sky News? Dispatched him good and proper without even raising his voice but cutting and slicing with words alone. My kind of guy. The pen is mightier than the sword. Must of all, though, he's a Paddy like my family even though we're American now pushing coupla hundred years.
The streak of resistance, hot flashing temper, long simmering resentments, genetically instilled rage at being badly treated and eager to turn the tables. If George moves to Saint Paul, Minnesota, we'll make him mayor.
I don't remember the date that HTS came into Aleppo and south. I think it was Dec. 8th. Whatever day it was, he did a video where he said he was done with the Arabs, fuck them, let them die, or something like that. It was rather shocking and I stopped listening to him for awhile.
These scenes of starving Arabs in humanitarian queues are so familiar to me. I remember them from when I was just learning to crawl. Nothing seems to change. I'm 70 now. I have no patience with Westerners who I know have not only a full fridge but money in their pockets to eat at the pub or a restaurant. I do not give up. No one who considers themselves allies of Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, Palestinians, Jordanians, and on and on should never be talking about throwing in the towel. Galloway has changed his tune. Of course he has. He's a true ally. But for people who act like they're fighting against this genocide of ALL these peoples need to be steady and keep on the straight and narrow. Owen Jones started repeating American-Zionist propaganda about Al-Assad. These guys really irritate me. I rarely watch Jones' stuff anymore.
Israel closed their embassy in Ireland, I read today. Don't worry about Galloway expressing his irritation. That was just a blip. He's back on course.
Ah yes that tallies with what I picked up from George's recent rants on MOATS. I think his main gripe is that the surrounding Arab nations have not been able to get their collective act together and provide support for the Palestinian resistance. Which to be fair is a criticism that has been leveled by quite a few observers. I think George has done as much as and probably more than any other Western politician or activist to communicate the Palestinian cause to the world, so I maybe he's earned the right to get a bit frustrated with the lack of progress, and also the disunity and corruption in the Arab world which impedes this. As for Owen ... I think he's got good intentions and has been very vocal about the Palestinian cause, but doesn't have the broad and deep understanding of geopolitics that would enable him to understand why the Assad regime was a lesser evil than what we will get from the head choppers and the Balkanization that is likely to occur now in Syria. So I won't stop listening to him either, same as Mehdi Hasan, he's a mixed bag too. What we on the left need to stop doing is in-fighting and hating on each other, instead we need to have civil discussions on points of difference.
The Arab states are all controlled by the US/UK. They were created by the colonialist Brits and French. The Gulf States are all controlled by the US. Not much they dare do with the American military bases sitting on their faces. Egypt and Jordan are dependent on Western money. Saudi Arabia is sitting on the fence but they'll go with whoever wins the US/BRICS tug-of-war. Turkey is in a precarious place just because of its geographical location. I wish they'd stand up to the US/UK but t's not really fair to criticize them for not shooting the face that feeds them. What's the point if to speak out or take action would result in your own destruction? How will that help Palestine? The time is not right. They would self-destruct if their populations take to the streets. I would like them to stand up and the leaders won't. But the people are. So I think cirticizing them for not taking a stronger stance re Palestine is an historically and politically stupid stance. The only justification their leaders have for controlling their respective countries is because the US says they should. That's their only rationale. The destruction of Syria was a Democratic Party operation--it was something Hillary Clinton was very involved in. They're going to try to take out Iran but I don't think they'll succeed. Russia is actively moving in to back up Iran quite literally. Israel's latest bombings of Syria were felt on the Richter scale 650-700 miles away in Turkey. What goes around comes around. The only thing preventing someone from doing the same to them is all the Muslim and Christian religious sites in Palestine. Otherwise, they would have been flattened by now.
As for substackers, I was shocked by how naive or controlled opposition Owen Jones was. I used to really like him. He shot himself in the foot by passing on the many-times-discredited propaganda against Bashar Al-Assad. Stop with the chemical weapons crap. He's not a tyrant. Are you kidding? It's phenomenal he managed to lead Syria as long as he did, given all the very powerful forces out to destroy him. He doesn't have the personality to be a country's leader, much less a tyrant, even if he is his father's (third) son. And he has had NO training for it. As for Mehdi Hasan, he's a narcissist and manipulative. He's not a real journalist. I "follow" him but once he puts up the paywall, that's as far as I go. If you want to make a living doing this and call yourself a journalist, provide excellent journalism so that people financially support you to enable you to keep doing that excellent journalism. I financially support journalists who aren't even allowed to practice journalism right now (thank you, Keir Starmer). I think their voices are essential and hope they will extricate themselves from charges of terrorism. It's an Orwellian time for sure. Hasan is more entertainment than anything. Watching him and Owens interact is kind of like watching gay porn with clothes on. It's quirky but not really my thing. I'm sorry but there are so many other quasi-Muslim or at least pro-Middle Eastern journalists to follow. I consider Mitchell Plitnik much more serious a journalist or commentator than Mehdi Hasan. And more insightful. And he's an American, I think, and Jewish. Hasan is a "celebrity"--not a journalist. He's an American citizen because he saw a much better smorgasbord over here than in Britain for him.
How can Owens NOT understand that Syria has been under siege since 2012 at the least? How can he NOT understand how Syria fits in Israel's nefarious plans? How can he NOT get it that the US government was going after them when they stated as much as Bush Jr. was leaving office? Why IS he writing for the Guardian? What serious journalist writes for the Guardian? That's only a smidgen better than writing for the New York Times. I quit reading the Guardian around October 7th, 2023.
I read right-wing and conservative writers, too. I want to understand everyone's point of view. But some people are such shills it's a complete waste of time. I used to do a paid subscription for Owens but after that HUGE mistake I decided not to. He's very well paid as it is. He doesn't need my piddly $4. He's cute. I'll give you that. But he's super young. And like many young journalists, he lacks general knowledge comparable to what my general knowledge was at that age, and his lack of historical background is surprising, given the privileged quality of his formal education. Maybe he's genuine, and maybe he's not. I didn't think I would ever question that. Now I do. Journalists need to be very careful (and SOPHISTICATED) about the sources of their information. That's Journalism 101. ESPECIALLY as regards journalism about the Middle East. He should know that. If you don't know how to swim, stay away from the water.
Thanks for the lengthy and interesting response. I guess I have been taking recent Owens' pro-palestinian work at face value and appreciating the efforts he has been making to amplify their cause. But the broader critique you make of the gaps in his game are interesting. I don't agree with others who have accused him of insincerity (or worse). But I don't expect perfection either. As long as the journalist is open to debate and discourse it seems to me that we should assume good faith. Is it really fair to assuse him of being a shill? Or is he just sloppy and prone to fixating narrowly on certain issues to the detriment of the broader perspective? Call me a naif but I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt, innocent till etc.
I see imperfections galore in Galloway, say (the homophobia, the trivializing of environmentalism, more besides) - but having listened to him for many years, his journalism seems to be self-consistent, he has integrity and is more than happy to engage with any antagonists.
I will look up Mitchell Plitnik, thanks for the mention.
I don't watch him regularly although I like him. I grew up in the M.E. Members of my family have been interviewed by so-called journalists like Dan Rather who just used them. When you live in the international community, you get used to people presenting as one thing when they are actually something else. You learn to sit back and watch their behavior to assess who they really are politically. I cannot come up with ANY excuse for buying the chemical attack story or the fucking White Helmets as the good guys. It's so obviously a put-up job by the CIA. It's just so obvious. I know Syrians in the U.S. who were rabidly pro-Hillary when she was running, thinking she was going to give them the quasi-democratic, quasi-capitalist, quasi-Western state they wanted. I told them over and over that they were on the wrong side, that Hillary just wanted to destroy Syria. I knew people like that in Iran and some of them STILL fall for the bullshit women's rights story to support overthrow of the government. It's so see-through who is really behind that and what they really want. Here in the U.S. these same people are pushing women back in the bedroom and kitchen. For several years now it has seemed like the preferred species to hunt in the U.S. is adult female humans. That's h ow I see the trans movement--erasing women, colonizing women. During deer gun hunting season, that's what it looks like to me. Instead of dead deer carcasses, I see dead women across the road. So for American politicos to go on and on about Iranian women having to wear a fucking scarf is a bit much. They want that oil and they want to do what their little buddies, the Israelis, want them to do. The racism and sadism is too much. And the cynicism. Jeez. They complain about Iranian women not being able to go outdoors shaking their mane in the wind but have NO PROBLEM with raping Saddam Hussein and Moamar Qaddafi with a bayonet (and Gazan prisoners)? EXCUSE ME?
I don't think Jones is necessarily pro-Israeli. But to push Hillary Clinton's and Obama's propaganda about Syria is a bit much. How can you take a "journalist" who is that naive seriously? And he has never, to my knowledge, apologized. How many people have died because of what he wrote?
What to say, the zionazi are both a destructive and self destructive abomination.
They are so retarded that they give away weapons to those who wants to use them to defend themselves from them, and then even bombs and kill their own just to claim to be always standing up on the rubles of anything they hate and fear. “They are psycho”
The amounts of unexploded ordinances scattered on the ground in Gaza, constitutes an interminable amount of material for manufacturing explosives devices and traps, and the more rubles are made, the easier it becomes to hide and set up more traps.
I am also wondering how many mercenaries wearing isranazi uniforms are there and how many of them have already suicide themselves both in Gaza and after Gaza.
My wish for Christmas is for a swift end to all the horrors, for the recognition of Palestine by all the world’s Nations, and for peace and dignity for all the people of the Middle East.
As far as soldiers selling rifles to the enemy, don't you think the Israeli government was behind that? They created and grew Hamas all for the day this traumatized and violent stepchild would finally strike back, Seventh October. That allowed Israel to go non~stop apeshit genocidal as the United States leads the way towards manifesting Greater Israel. That is what's happening and it does seem they've now added Lebanon and Syria to their illegal occupations, soon to be increased by beachfront property and oil rights in Gaza. If Putin does this gangster shit, we destroy Russia or fry trying. But Greater Israel is American Manifest Destiny 2.0, make no mistake.
It’s an old trick from a bad cowboys movie, throwing a gun at the person which you want to kill and than shooting him in cold blood when he is reaching to grab it and calling the murder “Self defense”.
Same is happening now in Syria, where they have placed in power someone which they can control, and somehow legally take out any time they like should he fail them.
An armed or wanted criminal will always be the perfect patsy.
The Russian puppet is also in the scam, the so called war on Ukraine is part of the same agenda.
Russia has since its deployment of troops in Syria, prevented Assad from liberating Idlib from the terrorists, forbidden him to use Russian technology to shoot down israeli jets and drones, and with its missiles and troops , served as protector of israel.
The so called israel is a Trojan horse which zionism have set ablaze.
A burning pile of shit which will forever be remembered for its stinking insanity, cruelty and horrors.
Really appreciate this, at a time when it all feels overwhelmingly horrific: the numbers of Palestinian civilians being killed by this debased, rogue state are all I can think about, but this gives me hope, thank you. It's astonishing how people aren't more gobsmacked at the continued strength ov the resistance, or believe Iz's lies
The Israelis have been at it for three quarters of a century but have not learned the lessons that colonisers eventually must learn - its nearly impossible to put down the human spirit for freedom, equality and dignity.
Three letter sock puppets appear to have discovered this blog. Be aware.
You talking Big Official Brother? I just write what I believe and what I would defend. I dream of my posts going up on a congressional projection screen. My best stuff got me kicked off Instagram. The shock and feigned horror, with faces screwed up as though they'd smelled rotten gastric emissions. Then listening to my prose and my rants read aloud into the permanent record! And the scolding is receive, how fun would that be?
George and others don't see what you see: resistance fighters finding new inputs for arms and ammunition. They'll fight heroically and v effectively until those things run out. I pray that your vision is the one that comes true. And I think the Ritter crowd was over confidant that Israel was nearing collapse and now comes the sobering news from Syria. Israel is always dangerous in lethal ways, open or covert. As long as western empire stands, so does Israel. But will they be the first to go should America collapse and die?
I too think Israel was on the brink. I believe Lebanon made a huge mistake with the ceasefire, it hasn't served them in any way shape or form. The Israelis are now thoroughly combing the south and getting into areas they could never hope to enter during the fight. Hezbollah had them right where they wanted but I guess civilian casualties took a toll on them.
Iran has also been extremely puzzling with their doddering True Promise - 2 and the impending True Promise - 3 which looks increasingly unlikely. I remember one of their generals saying that they could take out all of the Israeli weapons infrastructure within a day, only God and the Iranian leadership knows what prevented them from doing so. Perhaps they are stocking for an impending escalation when Trump takes charge, but Israel was there for the taking until late November.
So much of this is timing and order of attacks and how much time before attacks and reprisals. The Hezbollah truce was the act giving way to the immediate collapse of Syria after a $1B imperialist campaign. If only someone had attacked Israel with combined full force when the time was right. Makes you wonder what Blinken told Lebanon after demanding their surrender. George had questioned al~Aqsa Flood itself. Perhaps being seventy brings a depressed outlook, with only so many years remaining to see freedom come. Could Iran be playing a long game while building alliances? Trump spreads FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. One thing's for certain. In their hearts and DNA, oppressed Palestinians and Lebanese will never surrender and, being warriors and freedom fighters, will always find ways to exact much~deserved revenge.
I truly have no idea but I'm increasingly impressed with their cunning and restraint. I just hope it works. The best man I ever worked with came from Iran. He was secular but an absolute burning firebrand of integrity and confidence, constantly challenging and having down the leaders and other hypocrites. This was a Big Six management consulting firm run by rich, jealous, paranoid partners and my friend would just light them up. A great model and very influential on me as I've learned never to sell out or compromise yourself to liars and assholes.
Hold on, your comments about Galloway and Ritter seem a bit unconstructive. Even if they are not able to influence western governments, it's not for lack of trying, and they have been very successful at spreading awareness of the crimes that are being committed by Israel. So what's the point of denigrating them, or talking about their "whiteness" ? I thought Islam was race-neutral. Many Palestinians are pretty pale. This seems stupid to me.
Guerrilla WAR FARE worked well in VIETNAM and gave the NORTH VIETNAMESE a stunning VICTORY. Making good use of TUNNEL COMPLEXES. Degraded AMERICAN FORCES TIL THE AMERICANS SURRENDERED.
The Vietcong had a state in support and another in reserve as in China and the act of demonstration was not outlawed in the West as it is today, though the national guard did shoot student at Kent state university.
The heroic Palestinians have lackey states at their backs or Takfiri/salafist regimes surrounding or leading them and any socialist perspective is ground out by fundamentalism.
I fully support the creation of the state of Palestine and wish it to happen post haste.
Thanks for this.
Long live the resistance 💪🏻
Glad someone is appalled by the statements of Galloway (he's changed his tune a bit) and Ritter. I watched Ritter tell Nima Alkhorshid that the Iranians were going to cut a deal with the US re nuclear weapons and allow Americans to come in and monitor it even before the deal was struck. My jaw dropped. Nima kept a blank look on his face but much later he laughed and told Ritter he could not see Iran EVER inviting the US into their country again. It's like Ritter doesn't know what Iran went through to effect the Revolution or the Iran-Iraq War (which the US and Israel manufactured and kept going). I think Ritter is feeling side-lined and would love to be in the middle of things so his judgment is skewed towards wishful thinking. NONE of these commentators talk about how easy it would be to take out all the oil fields the US "protect". I think that's the fastest and easiest way to free Palestine, but of course Islam requires civilians be protected. I was rather turned off by Malouf blaming ALL Westerners--or was it all Americans--for what the US is doing in the Middle East. As though ordinary citizens actually have ANY power at all here. I understand his anger but it's counter-productive (and not entirely fair) right now. Anger among the powerless citizenry is leaking out, though, on an almost daily basis.
Ordinary citizens have great power but acquiesce at every turn, think MAGA and Trump as a supposed saviour for the US poor. This is oligarchs for the oligarchs by the oligarchs but is it realised? In the US where they think the Democrats are communists.
Re Ritter I have heard he is becoming unhinged due to his fear of being imprisoned for being a Russian influencer. Also he is an ex marine and the brainwashing that involves is permanent though his integrity is great but miscued.
I don't like the military at all. I think it's 100 years past its sell-by date. However, I have learned a great deal listening to Ritter about how the US military thinks. I especially appreciate all these retired and/or contrary high rank military and counter-intelligence and historical intellectuals expressing their honest opinions. I'm used to them saying what the 'system' wants them to say. I don't think Ritter's unhinged. I think he's been under a lot of stress for a long time. It's not fun and it does terrible injury to your nervous system. He needs to take care of himself, physically as well as psychologically. The CIA loves to break down people psychologically. That's mostly what they do. The military does brainwash, god knows. The ones who come back "sane" (I think) are psychopaths or possibly sociopaths. The ones who commit suicide over what they've participated in are sane. It's the ones who are not affected emotionally at all by their time in the military who freak me out. I am speaking of people who have been active duty in active war--not all the many military pen pushers, who are "nice guys", although I don't think joining the military is a very nice (or intelligent) thing to do.
If ordinary citizens have great power where are the arms we need? Let's take them up and go over to Israel and take care of business, shall we? Let's divert the billionaires' money to fill the pot-holes, increase wages, improve the schools (though I don't think you need money to fix what's wrong with our educational system), etc.
MAGA thinks Trump is their savior because they do not understand economics or politics and that is because Reagan totally destroyed our educational system quite on purpose. I don't think it was all that great but it used to be a lot better. Today I think you have to have a Master's degree to have an equivalent education in my generation (Boomer, sorry) to a BA. Today a high school diploma is not the equivalent to what it was in my generation. It's more equivalent to sixth or seventh grade. Maybe even lower. And Ph.D.'s are MAYBE the equivalent of an M.A. in years gone by. And advanced degrees teach you to teach. They don't teach practical skills or even to understand the world. I have a relative with a J.D. from a very highly respected university who cannot apply law to real world situations, which I suspect is the norm among attorneys.
MAGA are not the only people who believe in fairytales. So do college-educated liberals. We have lost our level of general education. My grandmother taught a one-room schoolroom in the Kansas prairies when she was 16. Her level of literacy was higher than most people I know who have advanced degrees. Part of that is cultural. The US has always been anti-intellectual. It's a fatal flaw. Not that intellectuals should run this place. But give credit where credit is due.
Americans don't understand communism at all. It's pathetic. They don't understand democracy, for that matter. And they don't value empathy anymore. If you want your kids to be empathetic, make sure they read lots of well-written, well-conceived fiction. You have to be heartless to steal someone else's country, culture, wealth, history, etc. The U.S. is probably number one in low levels of empathy. What amazes me about Gazans is their level of empathy. Their heart, in effect. Americans cannot compete with them in that. And it's not only Gazans.
Thanks Nosey appreciate the time taken for your response, what do you define as liberal as I am not from the states? Anti intellectualism is a growing problem today metastasising with the help of the GOP and the academic sell outs and MAGA leaders aka Steve Bannon etc similarly in other English speaking countries
The individual is also paramount in the US and it's history now encapsulated in libertarianism and patriotism of the leading capitalist state along side nationalism/nazism/balkanization of regions by colour revolutions and US NGO and Soros money. No history of society supporting it's needy also does not help and the cult of the entrepreneur aka Elon Musk being in power unelected in a supposed democracy.
Just some thoughts that make the states unique from parliamentary democracies of old mother England. Hahaha
Sorry, but I'm the wrong person to really answer this question as I am not American either--by birth or upbringing. I was born and raised in the M.E. (Syria, Lebanon and Iran). I have American relatives and am an American legally through my mother but I did not grow up here and she died when I was young so culturally I'm not as American as my accent would indicate. My definition of a liberal is an outsider's view of it. I still view the US as a foreign country in which I live in "exile", despite living here for 50 years now. Came here for college and felt very strongly that even well-meaning Westerners living in the M.E. hurt the countries they lived in so I stayed here. Liberals think they are compassionate and more insightful than lesser mortals, and tend to be (but not exclusively, obviously) White. If not White, they identify with Whites to a larger degree than they are willing to admit. Also they tend to be, but not always, college-educated. They tend to be middle-class at least. Privileged in many ways they don't want to admit. I suspect liberals understand all this about themselves but are uncomfortable about it so spend a lot of energy trying to prove to others they are not these things. Gaza has pretty well shown that liberals aren't liberal at all--not when it comes to Islam or Arabs or little brown brothers who are getting in the way of their economic and political desires. It has been horrific to me to learn that some of my very close friends use liberalism as a veneer almost as a protective overcoat. Underneath, their nakedness is pretty ugly. I am, of course, referring to their racism. I personally do not believe you can be a liberal if you are also racist which is why the US is, quite honestly, right of center even on good days, and there haven't been many of those in my lifetime.
I don't agree that the US is particularly individualistic. In fact, it is probably the most conformist country I've ever lived in. Even Britain allows and even values eccentricity. It's not allowed here. Express true individual eccentricity and you can easily end up locked up on a mental ward. Or in prison. The conformity in this society is a big reason why Americans bought the COVID Pandemic so easily. Also, it didn't hurt that Trump framed it as a Chinese thing. Racism towards Asians is still very much alive and well in this country. (It is the reason my father had to go to Iran for his first job out of grad school. Because of his Japanese ethnicity he was only allowed to be a farmworker or domestic servant in 1944 in the U.S.)
I think the US has always been anti-intellectual. So intellectuals are corralled into universities. It's something of a play pen or cushy prison. one of the economists I'm recently following points out that professors are not part of the laboring class. They are in a strange, otherworldly place in the economic system. And they cannot survive outside of it. In the university there is tremendous pressure to conform. You can so easily be blackballed in academia if you are a genuine individualist and independent thinker. This is what happened to genuinely independent medical people during the Pandemic. Pro-Palestinian academics were blackballed during Bush Jr.'s time. He even made a special office, Daniel Pipes was the first person to man it--he's a rabidly pro-Zionist racist, in case you don't know that name, and his job was to identify professors to fire and blacklist. People have forgotten about it, apparently. Intellectual political people were blacklisted back in the 1950's, in the 30's. I suppose to some degree they have been since the 1700's. The person at the State Department assigned to assess whether or not the US should support Israel was shoved out his office window for saying we would never stop regretting it. Forestall. I was evacuated on an aircraft carrier in the Sixth Fleet in the 1958 civil war in Beirut that was named for him. I find the irony extremely profound. How different the world would have been if he had: 1) not been murdered, 2) listened to. JFK wouldn't have been assassinated for the reasons he was, nor by the people who killed him, for one thing. We wouldn't be talking on a substack for another. Many millions would not have died as they have. So many brilliant political figures were thrown under the bus and we all--non-Americans included--lost so many opportunities because of it.
I have often wished we had representational parliamentary government as many European countries have, in the sense that each party would receive a representative percentage of officials from that party, depending on how the electorate voted. This would solve a lot of problems in this country. Of course, it seems that most countries who have this sort of representation also have remnants of the old nobility to prevent it from becoming as meaningful as it should be. Maybe not. Once I realized how racist Europe was after leaving the M.E. as a young adult, I lost interest in learning too much about it. I want equality far more than equity. But the power elite in any country will never "allow" that.
My main criticism of American culture is its focus on money and status. It destroys much of the good this culture and country could have done and represented. It has destroyed the political culture, the educational culture, the work culture, the arts culture, scientific culture. You name it, it screwed us up quite thoroughly. I find it infinitely boring.
But you have to ask a born and bred American these questions. I disliked the US when I first came here and was in terrible culture shock, and I still dislike a lot about it. Just as it is hard to love a father unreservedly who has raped your mother (for the record, mine did not), it is hard to love your legal country when you grew up witnessing its rape of your beloved adopted countries. I witnessed far too much of that and it hasn't stopped. Not one day in the last 50 years since I came here. Not one day. That is so pathetic and sad.
The curse of the post-colonialist, huh? We are increasingly the norm. But don't tell "them" that. God forbid.
Alhumdulillah Nosey, thanks so much for your most informative piece.
Not coincidentally they are also present in Ukraine. The US recruited Nazi scientists and actually I read that Bush Jr. brought KGB to work in the US surveillance industry, too, in the early 2000's. Their racism and sense of racial/ethnic supremacy is quite common when you scratch people under the skin. And of course tendencies towards authoritarianism are not uncommon. Israel is on its way out, if that helps.
I find him unnerving: there’s a beseeching desperation and finality to all his pronouncements which suggests a fragility; the big rejection over Iraq probably traumatised him deeply😨
I read that it was Ritter himself who sifted the Iraqi sands to find 98% of all Saddam's previously-destroyed documented WMDs. If that's true, he'd rightly feel a deeply vested interest. But it seemed like he and the always available Iranian professor had Israel practically dead and buried months ago. I never believed that was the case.
He was the chief weapons inspector but finding WMDs when there weren't any, ummmmmm. False premise for the invasion of a sovereign country which is the Empires specialty as documented widely but still widely disseminated in the neo con mileau and apparently believed also.
Story I heard was from George Gallagher of course: Saddam destroyed all his shit and scattered it across the desert. Ritter (presumably led a team which?) identified 98% of inventory known to exist by the atomic energy inspectors agency. I've not known George to lie. I do love his dramatic performance and rare word usage and language mastery. His delivery and speech patterns. His attention getting dead air pauses to think a bit before he next speaks Those fucking awesome hats and suits. Did you see him cut down that punk Australian attack journalist from Sky News? Dispatched him good and proper without even raising his voice but cutting and slicing with words alone. My kind of guy. The pen is mightier than the sword. Must of all, though, he's a Paddy like my family even though we're American now pushing coupla hundred years.
The streak of resistance, hot flashing temper, long simmering resentments, genetically instilled rage at being badly treated and eager to turn the tables. If George moves to Saint Paul, Minnesota, we'll make him mayor.
Sorry nosey which statements of George's were we meant to be appalled by? I may have missed something.
I don't remember the date that HTS came into Aleppo and south. I think it was Dec. 8th. Whatever day it was, he did a video where he said he was done with the Arabs, fuck them, let them die, or something like that. It was rather shocking and I stopped listening to him for awhile.
These scenes of starving Arabs in humanitarian queues are so familiar to me. I remember them from when I was just learning to crawl. Nothing seems to change. I'm 70 now. I have no patience with Westerners who I know have not only a full fridge but money in their pockets to eat at the pub or a restaurant. I do not give up. No one who considers themselves allies of Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, Palestinians, Jordanians, and on and on should never be talking about throwing in the towel. Galloway has changed his tune. Of course he has. He's a true ally. But for people who act like they're fighting against this genocide of ALL these peoples need to be steady and keep on the straight and narrow. Owen Jones started repeating American-Zionist propaganda about Al-Assad. These guys really irritate me. I rarely watch Jones' stuff anymore.
Israel closed their embassy in Ireland, I read today. Don't worry about Galloway expressing his irritation. That was just a blip. He's back on course.
Ah yes that tallies with what I picked up from George's recent rants on MOATS. I think his main gripe is that the surrounding Arab nations have not been able to get their collective act together and provide support for the Palestinian resistance. Which to be fair is a criticism that has been leveled by quite a few observers. I think George has done as much as and probably more than any other Western politician or activist to communicate the Palestinian cause to the world, so I maybe he's earned the right to get a bit frustrated with the lack of progress, and also the disunity and corruption in the Arab world which impedes this. As for Owen ... I think he's got good intentions and has been very vocal about the Palestinian cause, but doesn't have the broad and deep understanding of geopolitics that would enable him to understand why the Assad regime was a lesser evil than what we will get from the head choppers and the Balkanization that is likely to occur now in Syria. So I won't stop listening to him either, same as Mehdi Hasan, he's a mixed bag too. What we on the left need to stop doing is in-fighting and hating on each other, instead we need to have civil discussions on points of difference.
The Arab states are all controlled by the US/UK. They were created by the colonialist Brits and French. The Gulf States are all controlled by the US. Not much they dare do with the American military bases sitting on their faces. Egypt and Jordan are dependent on Western money. Saudi Arabia is sitting on the fence but they'll go with whoever wins the US/BRICS tug-of-war. Turkey is in a precarious place just because of its geographical location. I wish they'd stand up to the US/UK but t's not really fair to criticize them for not shooting the face that feeds them. What's the point if to speak out or take action would result in your own destruction? How will that help Palestine? The time is not right. They would self-destruct if their populations take to the streets. I would like them to stand up and the leaders won't. But the people are. So I think cirticizing them for not taking a stronger stance re Palestine is an historically and politically stupid stance. The only justification their leaders have for controlling their respective countries is because the US says they should. That's their only rationale. The destruction of Syria was a Democratic Party operation--it was something Hillary Clinton was very involved in. They're going to try to take out Iran but I don't think they'll succeed. Russia is actively moving in to back up Iran quite literally. Israel's latest bombings of Syria were felt on the Richter scale 650-700 miles away in Turkey. What goes around comes around. The only thing preventing someone from doing the same to them is all the Muslim and Christian religious sites in Palestine. Otherwise, they would have been flattened by now.
As for substackers, I was shocked by how naive or controlled opposition Owen Jones was. I used to really like him. He shot himself in the foot by passing on the many-times-discredited propaganda against Bashar Al-Assad. Stop with the chemical weapons crap. He's not a tyrant. Are you kidding? It's phenomenal he managed to lead Syria as long as he did, given all the very powerful forces out to destroy him. He doesn't have the personality to be a country's leader, much less a tyrant, even if he is his father's (third) son. And he has had NO training for it. As for Mehdi Hasan, he's a narcissist and manipulative. He's not a real journalist. I "follow" him but once he puts up the paywall, that's as far as I go. If you want to make a living doing this and call yourself a journalist, provide excellent journalism so that people financially support you to enable you to keep doing that excellent journalism. I financially support journalists who aren't even allowed to practice journalism right now (thank you, Keir Starmer). I think their voices are essential and hope they will extricate themselves from charges of terrorism. It's an Orwellian time for sure. Hasan is more entertainment than anything. Watching him and Owens interact is kind of like watching gay porn with clothes on. It's quirky but not really my thing. I'm sorry but there are so many other quasi-Muslim or at least pro-Middle Eastern journalists to follow. I consider Mitchell Plitnik much more serious a journalist or commentator than Mehdi Hasan. And more insightful. And he's an American, I think, and Jewish. Hasan is a "celebrity"--not a journalist. He's an American citizen because he saw a much better smorgasbord over here than in Britain for him.
How can Owens NOT understand that Syria has been under siege since 2012 at the least? How can he NOT understand how Syria fits in Israel's nefarious plans? How can he NOT get it that the US government was going after them when they stated as much as Bush Jr. was leaving office? Why IS he writing for the Guardian? What serious journalist writes for the Guardian? That's only a smidgen better than writing for the New York Times. I quit reading the Guardian around October 7th, 2023.
I read right-wing and conservative writers, too. I want to understand everyone's point of view. But some people are such shills it's a complete waste of time. I used to do a paid subscription for Owens but after that HUGE mistake I decided not to. He's very well paid as it is. He doesn't need my piddly $4. He's cute. I'll give you that. But he's super young. And like many young journalists, he lacks general knowledge comparable to what my general knowledge was at that age, and his lack of historical background is surprising, given the privileged quality of his formal education. Maybe he's genuine, and maybe he's not. I didn't think I would ever question that. Now I do. Journalists need to be very careful (and SOPHISTICATED) about the sources of their information. That's Journalism 101. ESPECIALLY as regards journalism about the Middle East. He should know that. If you don't know how to swim, stay away from the water.
Thanks for the lengthy and interesting response. I guess I have been taking recent Owens' pro-palestinian work at face value and appreciating the efforts he has been making to amplify their cause. But the broader critique you make of the gaps in his game are interesting. I don't agree with others who have accused him of insincerity (or worse). But I don't expect perfection either. As long as the journalist is open to debate and discourse it seems to me that we should assume good faith. Is it really fair to assuse him of being a shill? Or is he just sloppy and prone to fixating narrowly on certain issues to the detriment of the broader perspective? Call me a naif but I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt, innocent till etc.
I see imperfections galore in Galloway, say (the homophobia, the trivializing of environmentalism, more besides) - but having listened to him for many years, his journalism seems to be self-consistent, he has integrity and is more than happy to engage with any antagonists.
I will look up Mitchell Plitnik, thanks for the mention.
What do you think of Glenn Greenwald?
I don't watch him regularly although I like him. I grew up in the M.E. Members of my family have been interviewed by so-called journalists like Dan Rather who just used them. When you live in the international community, you get used to people presenting as one thing when they are actually something else. You learn to sit back and watch their behavior to assess who they really are politically. I cannot come up with ANY excuse for buying the chemical attack story or the fucking White Helmets as the good guys. It's so obviously a put-up job by the CIA. It's just so obvious. I know Syrians in the U.S. who were rabidly pro-Hillary when she was running, thinking she was going to give them the quasi-democratic, quasi-capitalist, quasi-Western state they wanted. I told them over and over that they were on the wrong side, that Hillary just wanted to destroy Syria. I knew people like that in Iran and some of them STILL fall for the bullshit women's rights story to support overthrow of the government. It's so see-through who is really behind that and what they really want. Here in the U.S. these same people are pushing women back in the bedroom and kitchen. For several years now it has seemed like the preferred species to hunt in the U.S. is adult female humans. That's h ow I see the trans movement--erasing women, colonizing women. During deer gun hunting season, that's what it looks like to me. Instead of dead deer carcasses, I see dead women across the road. So for American politicos to go on and on about Iranian women having to wear a fucking scarf is a bit much. They want that oil and they want to do what their little buddies, the Israelis, want them to do. The racism and sadism is too much. And the cynicism. Jeez. They complain about Iranian women not being able to go outdoors shaking their mane in the wind but have NO PROBLEM with raping Saddam Hussein and Moamar Qaddafi with a bayonet (and Gazan prisoners)? EXCUSE ME?
I don't think Jones is necessarily pro-Israeli. But to push Hillary Clinton's and Obama's propaganda about Syria is a bit much. How can you take a "journalist" who is that naive seriously? And he has never, to my knowledge, apologized. How many people have died because of what he wrote?
Ritter is a drama queen, hysteria is his middle initial...🥹
What to say, the zionazi are both a destructive and self destructive abomination.
They are so retarded that they give away weapons to those who wants to use them to defend themselves from them, and then even bombs and kill their own just to claim to be always standing up on the rubles of anything they hate and fear. “They are psycho”
The amounts of unexploded ordinances scattered on the ground in Gaza, constitutes an interminable amount of material for manufacturing explosives devices and traps, and the more rubles are made, the easier it becomes to hide and set up more traps.
I am also wondering how many mercenaries wearing isranazi uniforms are there and how many of them have already suicide themselves both in Gaza and after Gaza.
My wish for Christmas is for a swift end to all the horrors, for the recognition of Palestine by all the world’s Nations, and for peace and dignity for all the people of the Middle East.
Thank you for sharing Palestine will be free!
As far as soldiers selling rifles to the enemy, don't you think the Israeli government was behind that? They created and grew Hamas all for the day this traumatized and violent stepchild would finally strike back, Seventh October. That allowed Israel to go non~stop apeshit genocidal as the United States leads the way towards manifesting Greater Israel. That is what's happening and it does seem they've now added Lebanon and Syria to their illegal occupations, soon to be increased by beachfront property and oil rights in Gaza. If Putin does this gangster shit, we destroy Russia or fry trying. But Greater Israel is American Manifest Destiny 2.0, make no mistake.
It’s an old trick from a bad cowboys movie, throwing a gun at the person which you want to kill and than shooting him in cold blood when he is reaching to grab it and calling the murder “Self defense”.
Same is happening now in Syria, where they have placed in power someone which they can control, and somehow legally take out any time they like should he fail them.
An armed or wanted criminal will always be the perfect patsy.
The Russian puppet is also in the scam, the so called war on Ukraine is part of the same agenda.
Russia has since its deployment of troops in Syria, prevented Assad from liberating Idlib from the terrorists, forbidden him to use Russian technology to shoot down israeli jets and drones, and with its missiles and troops , served as protector of israel.
The so called israel is a Trojan horse which zionism have set ablaze.
A burning pile of shit which will forever be remembered for its stinking insanity, cruelty and horrors.
Palestine will be free.
Really appreciate this, at a time when it all feels overwhelmingly horrific: the numbers of Palestinian civilians being killed by this debased, rogue state are all I can think about, but this gives me hope, thank you. It's astonishing how people aren't more gobsmacked at the continued strength ov the resistance, or believe Iz's lies
The Israelis have been at it for three quarters of a century but have not learned the lessons that colonisers eventually must learn - its nearly impossible to put down the human spirit for freedom, equality and dignity.
Three letter sock puppets appear to have discovered this blog. Be aware.
Thanks for the heads-up, Kojo. Did you notice something that I should be aware of?
There are some weird attacks on other substack writers going on in the commentary.
You talking Big Official Brother? I just write what I believe and what I would defend. I dream of my posts going up on a congressional projection screen. My best stuff got me kicked off Instagram. The shock and feigned horror, with faces screwed up as though they'd smelled rotten gastric emissions. Then listening to my prose and my rants read aloud into the permanent record! And the scolding is receive, how fun would that be?
George and others don't see what you see: resistance fighters finding new inputs for arms and ammunition. They'll fight heroically and v effectively until those things run out. I pray that your vision is the one that comes true. And I think the Ritter crowd was over confidant that Israel was nearing collapse and now comes the sobering news from Syria. Israel is always dangerous in lethal ways, open or covert. As long as western empire stands, so does Israel. But will they be the first to go should America collapse and die?
I too think Israel was on the brink. I believe Lebanon made a huge mistake with the ceasefire, it hasn't served them in any way shape or form. The Israelis are now thoroughly combing the south and getting into areas they could never hope to enter during the fight. Hezbollah had them right where they wanted but I guess civilian casualties took a toll on them.
Iran has also been extremely puzzling with their doddering True Promise - 2 and the impending True Promise - 3 which looks increasingly unlikely. I remember one of their generals saying that they could take out all of the Israeli weapons infrastructure within a day, only God and the Iranian leadership knows what prevented them from doing so. Perhaps they are stocking for an impending escalation when Trump takes charge, but Israel was there for the taking until late November.
So much of this is timing and order of attacks and how much time before attacks and reprisals. The Hezbollah truce was the act giving way to the immediate collapse of Syria after a $1B imperialist campaign. If only someone had attacked Israel with combined full force when the time was right. Makes you wonder what Blinken told Lebanon after demanding their surrender. George had questioned al~Aqsa Flood itself. Perhaps being seventy brings a depressed outlook, with only so many years remaining to see freedom come. Could Iran be playing a long game while building alliances? Trump spreads FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt. One thing's for certain. In their hearts and DNA, oppressed Palestinians and Lebanese will never surrender and, being warriors and freedom fighters, will always find ways to exact much~deserved revenge.
I have some theories about the puzzling Iranian behaviour. Hopefully I flesh them out and write something soon.
I truly have no idea but I'm increasingly impressed with their cunning and restraint. I just hope it works. The best man I ever worked with came from Iran. He was secular but an absolute burning firebrand of integrity and confidence, constantly challenging and having down the leaders and other hypocrites. This was a Big Six management consulting firm run by rich, jealous, paranoid partners and my friend would just light them up. A great model and very influential on me as I've learned never to sell out or compromise yourself to liars and assholes.
Hold on, your comments about Galloway and Ritter seem a bit unconstructive. Even if they are not able to influence western governments, it's not for lack of trying, and they have been very successful at spreading awareness of the crimes that are being committed by Israel. So what's the point of denigrating them, or talking about their "whiteness" ? I thought Islam was race-neutral. Many Palestinians are pretty pale. This seems stupid to me.
Guerrilla WAR FARE worked well in VIETNAM and gave the NORTH VIETNAMESE a stunning VICTORY. Making good use of TUNNEL COMPLEXES. Degraded AMERICAN FORCES TIL THE AMERICANS SURRENDERED.
The Vietcong had a state in support and another in reserve as in China and the act of demonstration was not outlawed in the West as it is today, though the national guard did shoot student at Kent state university.
The heroic Palestinians have lackey states at their backs or Takfiri/salafist regimes surrounding or leading them and any socialist perspective is ground out by fundamentalism.
I fully support the creation of the state of Palestine and wish it to happen post haste.
Please pass this around.
https://israelpalestinenews.org/watch-the-israeli-hit-list-iran-remains/
https://t.me/NEWWORLDORDYR/26668