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xtruss · 10 months

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North Atlantic Terrorist Organization’s (NATO’s) Outreach In Asia Exposes US’ Selfishness; Will Further Divide Group

— Zhao Yusha | July 09, 2023

Japan, The First Feeder of NATO in Asia. Cartoon: Vitaly Podvitski

Rifts within the NATO alliance over the potential expansion of the bloc's presence in Asia Pacific ahead of the NATO summit next week have been exposed by strong opposition from French President Emmanuel Macron. Chinese experts believe NATO's intention to extend its tentacles into Asia Pacific region not only exposes the selfish purpose of the US, which plays a central role in the alliance, to impose its own hegemonic intention over other NATO members' interests, but will further divide the group as in Europe, France may not stand alone in its opposition.

This year marks the second consecutive year that leaders from both Japan and South Korea will attend the summit. Observers see it as a sign that the two countries are seeking closer ties to better coordinate Washington's strategic moves to contain China. Such a "short-sighted" move will surely trigger China's strong opposition and result in regional countries' heightened vigilance.

NATO leaders will meet in Vilnius, capital of Lithuania from Tuesday to Wednesday. This summit is earmarked as a moment for making progress on the plan to open a liaison office in Japan, which would represent the organization's first outpost in the region.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who is scheduled to participate in the summit for the second year in a row, will use the opportunity to stress the need for relations between Japan and NATO to be stronger, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Friday.

NATO allies are in discussion about a possible statement with four Indo-Pacific countries - Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand - that would set out deeper cooperation and reiterate that security in Europe is interlinked with security in the region, Bloomberg quoted a senior European diplomat as saying on Saturday.

However, according to a report from Politico, Macron has voiced strong opposition, expressing concerns that opening a liaison office in Japan would shift NATO's focus too far from its original mandate in the North Atlantic.

Europe ‘Japanizing’ its US policy could backfire!

"We are not in favor as a matter of principle," stated an official from the Elysée Palace during a press briefing on Friday. The official further emphasized that the Japanese authorities themselves have not expressed significant interest in the proposed office.

Chinese experts said that French opposition may postpone NATO's move, but it may not be able to deter the alliance's growing tendency of getting more involved in Asia-Pacific matters.

There is a wide consensus within NATO that the alliance should focus primarily on transatlantic security. However, to serve its global hegemonic purpose, the US, who takes center stage of the alliance, is pushing for the organization to shift to the Asia-Pacific region, mainly to contain China, Li Haidong, a Professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, told the Global Times on Sunday.

The US and other NATO members are divided over whether to expand its role in Asia, said Li, pointing out that amid the background of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, some European countries are worried that such a move will dilute the organization' attention on the crisis.

Speaking during a special session at the IISS Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last month, NATO's assistant secretary-general for defense policy and planning Angus Lapsley said that the alliance does not wish to operate or expand in the Indo-Pacific, but it wants to be involved and engaged in the region to gain a better understanding of happenings in this part of the world, the Straits Times reported.

Pushing NATO to extend its role into Asia Pacific not only exposes the US' selfishness of imposing its own hegemonic goals over other members' national security, it will also risk dividing the alliance, as some NATO members may be reluctant to follow suit, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times.

It would be a "very hostile move" to open a liaison office in Japan, Chinese experts said. The discussion comes at a time when the US is seeking to keep high-level communication lines open with China as US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen just concluded her visit to China, who noted that the US does not seek to "decouple" from China.

At the same time that US’ Braindead Politicians are uttering sweet words to assure China that US is not to seek decoupling from Beijing, on the other hand, it is sparing no effort to marshal its allies to counter China in the region. These self-contradictory moves are deeply disturbing, Li said. He noted that these actions reveal a lack of sincerity and credibility by Washington to fix China-US relations.

US Vassals

Leaders from South Korea and Japan will hold a meeting on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Lithuania 🇱🇹 next week, South Korea's presidential office said on Sunday.

Similar to Japan's eagerness to welcome NATO to expand to Asia Pacific, South Korea, which is leaning more closely toward the US, is also allying itself closer to US-led small cliques in order to counter China.

Song pointed out that a meeting between Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol is set to further mend disputes between two countries and forge closer military ties to better serve Washington's goal of a trilateral alliance in the region. However, Song said different from Japan's taking proactive gesture of welcoming NATO, South Korea to some extent has been hijacked by the US to serve the latter's interest.

In January, Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of NATO, urged South Korea to "step up" military support for Ukraine, citing other governments that have changed their policies on exporting weapons to Ukraine. Ever since the start of the Ukraine war, pressure has been building on Seoul to send its arms to Kiev, from the US, UK and EU member states.

Lü Chao, an expert on the Korean Peninsula at the Liaoning Academy of Social Sciences, described South Korea and Japan's attaching themselves to the US' chariot as a "short-sighted and dangerous" move, as standing at the front line of US containment of China will also put themselves on the front line of China's countermeasures.

Moreover, inviting extraterritorial military alliances into the Asia-Pacific region arouses heightened vigilance by regional countries, which crave stability, Lü said.

Speaking in June at a graduation ceremony for students, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said, "NATO only exists in the West, and now it seems to be involved in the Asia-Pacific region in various activities, bringing concerns for ASEAN," Cambodian media reported.

#North Atlantic Terrorist Organization #Japan 🇯🇵#USA 🇺🇸#Joe Biden #Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida #French 🇫🇷 President Emmanuel Macron #Japan 🇯🇵 South Korea 🇰🇷 Australia 🇦🇺 and New Zealand 🇳🇿#Vilnius Capital of Lithuania 🇱🇹#China Foreign Affairs University #US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen #Jens Stoltenberg Terrorist Secretary General of NATO #Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen

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timesofocean · 2 years

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Turkey's Erdogan, NATO chief discuss alliance bids of Sweden, Finland

New Post has been published on https://www.timesofocean.com/turkeys-erdogan-nato-chief-discuss-alliance-bids-of-sweden-finland/

Turkey's Erdogan, NATO chief discuss alliance bids of Sweden, Finland

Ankara (The Times Groupe)- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke on the phone with NATO chief yesterday and reiterated Ankara’s concerns about Finland and Sweden joining NATO.

Turkish government spokesperson stated that Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Jens Stoltenberg that no progress could be achieved without “concrete steps” by both Finland and Sweden that would satisfy Turkey’s expectations.”

Steps could include written commitments to a paradigm shift in fighting terrorism and cooperation with the defense industry, the report says.

Stoltenberg said on Twitter that he had a constructive conversation with Erdogan ahead of the NATO summit in Madrid on June 29-30.

“We discussed the importance of addressing Turkey’s legitimate security concerns on the fight against terrorism and making progress in the NATO accession process for Finland and Sweden,” he added.

On May 18, Sweden and Finland formally applied to join NATO, spurred by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Turkey, a longstanding member of NATO, has expressed opposition to these countries’ membership bids, accusing them of tolerating and even supporting terror groups such as the PKK and the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO). Their accession requires the unanimous approval of all 30 NATO member states.

Turkey conducted consultations with the Swedish and Finnish delegations on their NATO applications in Ankara in late May. Erdogan said the talks had not been “at the desired level.”

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thedevilsrain · 3 months

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he was a little german boy. he's canonically inbred. he works for the north atlantic terrorist organization. he has a huge ass for some reason. he hates women on a fundamental level. he can't understand sarcasm to save his life. he's a 37 year old man with a blunt bang bob. everyone at his office fucking hates him. one time he tried to open a wine bottle between his legs (image 8). his mom died when he was a baby. he's a grown man who sings lullabies to himself to fall asleep. he has a portable hairdyer (image 9). he pees more often than anyone i've ever known. he's been chainsmoking ever since he was a teenager. he's chased by a hot blonde who really wants to get in his pants. he survived a bomb blast once. he eats fried potatoes because it's the only way he can feel a semblance of maternal warmth. his dad was a nazi

#led zeppelin shoujo yaoi manga tag

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 6 months

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[mike luckovich]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 31, 2023 (Tuesday)

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 1, 2023

Today, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin testified before the Senate Appropriations Committee about the need to fund military aid to both Ukraine and Israel, along with humanitarian aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza and increased U.S. border security, rather than accept the new measure from extremist House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). Johnson wants to split off funding for Israel into its own bill and couple it with cuts to the Internal Revenue Service. Those cuts would dramatically decrease tax audits of those with the highest income and thus decrease revenue for the U.S. Treasury; they are popular with Republicans.

Johnson and other extremist Republicans have made it clear they are not interested in continuing to help Ukraine fight off Russia’s invasion.

Blinken and Austin got strong support not only from Senate Democrats, but also from many Senate Republicans, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who explained why it is important for the United States to “help Ukraine win the war” in a speech at the University of Louisville where he introduced Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova.

“If Russia prevails, there’s no question that Putin’s appetite for empire will extend to NATO [the North Atlantic Treaty Organization], raising the threat to the U.S. transatlantic alliance and the risk of war for America. Such an outcome would demand greater permanent deployment of our military force in Europe, a much greater cost than the support we have provided to Ukraine. And of course, Russian victory would embolden Putin’s growing alliance with fellow authoritarian regimes in Iran and China.”

“So this is not just a test for Ukraine,” McConnell said. “It’s a test for the United States and the free world.”

But at the Senate hearing, protesters from CodePink, the group that describes itself as “a feminist grassroots organization working to end U.S. warfare and imperialism,” had a different agenda. They held up their hands, covered in red paint, with the word “GAZA” written on their forearms, repeatedly interrupting Blinken and calling for an end to funding for Israel, citing what the organization calls “Israel's genocide of Palestine.”

Over the weekend, as Palestinian militants continued to fire rockets into Israel and skirmish with Israeli troops, Israel began to push into northern Gaza in a ground operation U.S. officials said had been changed from the originally planned massive Israeli ground offensive to “surgical” strikes that would hit high-value Hamas targets but spare Palestinian civilians.

That advance was accompanied by even fiercer airstrikes than previous ones, and today an attack on a Palestinian refugee camp appears to have caused significant civilian loss. The Israeli military said the attack “eliminated many terrorists and destroyed terror infrastructure,” with underground Hamas installations collapsing and taking adjacent buildings down with them.

From the time of Hamas’s initial strike against Israel on October 7, the Biden administration has been keen to stop the crisis from spreading. President Joe Biden was firm in his repeated declarations that the U.S would stand firmly behind Israel, warning “any country, any organization, anyone thinking of taking advantage of this situation, I have one word: Don’t. Don’t.”

To deter militants backed by Iran, the U.S. moved two American aircraft carrier strike groups into the region. After repeated drone strikes against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, on Wednesday, October 25, Biden warned Iran that the U.S. would respond if Iran continued to move against U.S. troops. On October 27 the U.S. carried out airstrikes against munitions stockpiles stored at two facilities in eastern Syria linked to militants backed by Iran. Secretary of Defense Austin emphasized that the U.S. actions were “precision self-defense strikes” and were separate from the conflict in Gaza.

Drone attacks on U.S. troops in the area have increased, and the Institute for the Study of War assessed today that Iranian-backed militants, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, “are creating the expectation in the information environment that Hezbollah will escalate against Israel on or around November 3.” The U.S. today announced it is sending 300 additional troops to U.S. Central Command, whose responsibility includes the Middle East, Central Asia and parts of South Asia, to protect U.S. troops from drone attacks by Iran-backed militant groups. Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder told reporters the troops are not going to Israel.

In addition to trying to hold off Iran from expanding the conflict, the U.S. has been trying to support Israel’s right to respond while also demanding that Israel follow the rules of war. The U.S. has firmly condemned the October 7 attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians as “an act of sheer evil.” That evil included the taking of hostages—which is a war crime—including U.S. citizens.

But, all along, the administration has warned Israel that it must not violate international law in its retaliation for the attack. On October 18, in a remarkable admission, Biden advised Israelis not to be consumed by their rage. “After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. And while we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”

Responding to the October 7 massacre, he said, “requires being deliberate. It requires asking very hard questions. It requires clarity about the objectives and an honest assessment about whether the path you are on will achieve those objectives.”

Despite the administration's warnings, while international eyes are on Gaza, according to the United Nations, settlers in the West Bank encouraged by the policies of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu have killed at least 115 Palestinians, injured more than 2,000 more, and forcibly displaced almost 1,000. The United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross are concerned that Israel’s pursuit of Hamas militants has led it to commit war crimes of its own, enacting collective punishment on the civilians of Gaza by denying them food, water, and electricity as well as instructing them to leave their homes, displacing well over a million people.

While the U.S. says it does not trust the numbers of casualties asserted by Hamas, it believes from other sources that there have been “many thousands of civilian deaths in Gaza thus far in the conflict…. Way too many.” Today the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, John Kirby, reminded reporters: “We aren’t on the ground fighting in this war. There’s no intent to do that…. [T]hese are Israeli military operations. They get to decide what their aims and strategy are. They get to decide what their tactics are. They get to decide how they’re going to decide to go after Hamas.

“We’re doing everything we can to support them—including providing our perspectives, including asking them hard questions about their aims and their strategy and—the kind of questions we’d ask ourselves.”

The administration appears to be trying to defend Israel’s right to self-defense in the face of a massacre that took the lives of 1,400 Israelis, while also trying to recover the hostages, get humanitarian aid into Gaza, and prevent U.S. ally Israel from committing war crimes in retaliation for the attack. It is also insisting there must be a long-term plan for Israel and the Palestinians. To that end, it is throwing its weight behind the long-neglected two-state solution.

On October 27, U.S. Representative to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield echoed Biden’s statement that “there is no going back to the status quo as it stood on October 6th. We must not go back to the status quo where Hamas terrorizes Israel and uses Palestinian civilians as human shields,” she said. “And we must not go back to the status quo where extremist settlers can attack and terrorize Palestinians in the West Bank. The status quo is untenable and it is unacceptable.”

“[W]hen this crisis is over,” she said, “there has to be a vision of what comes next. In our view, that vision must be centered around a two-state solution. Getting there will require concerted efforts by all of us—Israelis, Palestinians, regional partners, and global leaders—to put us on a path for peace. To integrate Israel with the region, while insisting that the aspirations of the Palestinian people be part of a more hopeful future.”

The current crisis might have made that two-state solution more possible than it has been for a generation. Neither Hamas nor Netanyahu’s government supports a two-state solution, but other leaders in the region, including Jordan’s King Abdullah II and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, say they do.

Hamas has little support outside of Iran, and up to 80% of Israelis blame Prime Minister Netanyahu for the October 7 attack. His leadership of a right-wing coalition has shielded him from corruption charges even as his attempts to gain more control over Israeli society sparked the largest protests in Israeli history, and there is no doubt the attack and his response to it have weakened him dramatically. At a news conference yesterday, a reporter asked if he would resign.

The recent peace talks in Egypt excluded Hamas, Iran, and Israel. Instead, the organizers invited Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority that oversees the West Bank. President Biden, Secretary of State Blinken, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan have been meeting with officials from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan. On Friday, Blinken will travel back to Israel to meet with officials there, after which he will make other stops in the region.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From American #War #Israel Hamas war #Gaza #Blinken #diplomacy

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myrddin-wylt · 1 year

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I appreciate your little news updates so much, because sorting through the news really messes with my mental health, but I can read your little blurbs and then go find an article or two about each topic without having to scroll through every single bad thing that's happened in the last 24 hours. So like, I know it's just you posting about your personal political interests but I really appreciate that you do it 💚

Yeah, I can definitely understand that. Looking through certain topics of news does that to me too, which is why I don't include certain major news events.

Also, some more news I meant to include but missed or forgot:

A French journalist (doing journalism, not a volunteer fighter) was killed in Ukraine. this is the 15th journalist to be killed in Ukraine so far, and the third French journalist, which seems to have sufficiently pissed off France because they pretty much immediately opened a war crime investigation and are moving with the UK to label Wagner Group a terrorist organization. hopefully they can push Biden into picking up his balls and doing so as well.

Japan is in talks to open a NATO liaison office because "since the aggression by Russia to Ukraine, the world (has) become more unstable." It's just [chef's kiss]. I'm absolutely losing my shit. Russia is about to be surrounded on the west AND east by NATO and they did it to themselves! amazing! not only did they prompt Finland and Sweden to break their legendary neutrality, but JAPAN??? absolutely losing it over this. Putin spent two decades on policy designed to contain NATO expansion and the direct result is that he's spread it not only in Europe but also the Pacific. That's not even supposed to happen! It's the NORTH ATLANTIC Treaty Alliance! and yet, here we are. truly amazing. shoutout to Putin for being NATO's biggest supporter of all time. Once again, Luigi wins by doing nothing.

Much more lighthearted: so there's an international competition to see what kind of tank (well, "armored gunnery") performs the best, and heartfelt shoutout to Britain on winning first place. Apparently this Iron Spear had the most competitors to date, too. The Brits may have lost their empire, their naval superiority, and they never really had air superiority to begin with but at least they still have the best tanks. so that's something!

#ask #anon #irl news #I don't think it's possible but wouldn't it be funny if Japan outright joined NATO #esp since Finland is now a member #the two countries that kicked the Russians'/Soviets' asses in the 20th century being NATO members?#best timeline

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alien-in-residence · 8 days

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Survivors of Terra ch3. The Field Marshal

Levan was pleased with the city below him. Paris was shining like a diamond in the perfect light. The rising sun illuminated clean streets and organized ghettos. The species and sub-species of the Imperium were all in their place. Levan, the Ground Marshall of the 34th army sighed a sigh of relief and satisfaction. It was the shining moment of tranquility he needed after such disastrous recent news.

His previously unbroken grip of control that had stretched across all of Eurasia had been broken. The terrorist cell of “freedom fighters” that called themselves the Nu-Cossacks had seized one of his space elevators. In addition, his highest ranking Psion had been captured in the attack. Reports from his field commanders communicated complete disarray along the Black Sea and some frightening reports from the Urals.

He took one last look at his shining city before leaving for his next meeting which was likely to test the max volume of his vocalizer. His mood nosedived as he made his way from his balcony and into the hovercraft sent to fetch him.

His assistant, Yvath, was a Kiran like him and understandably dreaded handing the Ground Marshall the morning briefing. Yvath used the Kiran facial sign-language during their ride to the Occupation’s Headquarters. Their Huliotess pilot was used to the silence and if it bothered her, she certainly kept it to herself.

Local commanders in the Indian Ocean had sent in reports asking for reinforcements, a cowardly preemptive concern for their own nearby space elevator. The recent attack on the Black Sea hadn’t evolved into a greater strategy but incidents of graffiti and minor unrest from across the continent had been compiled in the report. The Straggler Regiments of the Americas had of course sent a formal insult at the news of the lost space elevator, always calling for a new round of atrocities. Lastly, Yvath mentioned that the attempts to recapture a Yonk deserter from the North Atlantic Academy had stalled.

“Cancel the search,” Levan signed with his facial tentacles. “We need the hovercraft for the counter-attack on the tower. Also, send an insult back at the American regiments, something about weak breeding. They expect it at this point.”

Yvath set to the Ground Marshall’s orders. He’d already written the American Regiment response ahead of time. Levan spent the brief remainder of the flight looking over shipping reports. He could shift exports of raw resources and human freight to the Indian Ocean Elevator while maintaining the agreements he had made with Sol’s pirates. He considered other logistics as the car approached the docking port.

The 34th Army’s headquarters was constructed out of the corpse of an Imperium Heavy Cruiser but a century of lacking repairs and the occasional terrorist attack had scarred the massive structure The building stood far above all that remained of Paris. The war had reset the skyline completely. New buildings were rarely allowed by the Occupation. Much of the rubble had been swept away and been replaced by the new established ghettos of the city. None of the landmarks had survived beside part of the Arc de Triomphe, which had been kept by Ground Marshals past as a cruel joke.

The hovercraft docked at the 106th floor and Levan and Yvath disembarked. A host of Kiran commanders and a handful of senior Psions greeted them. The commanders were bloodthirsty and attempted to start the meeting while Levan walked to the conference room. A single wave of his hand silenced them. Although the Psions towered over the Kirans in their midst, they all looked as if they were on their way to the gallows. This demeanor was not unjustified and Levan would have a word about their previous assessments on human “pacificity.”

The meeting hall was a large semi-circle with curved rows of seats all facing a single screen-wall. Before the Occupation headquarters had been converted into a skyscraper, this room had been a secondary command bridge.

Levan sat in the center chair in the back of the room while Yvath got the screen connected to the attendees data-slates. Several times the screen flickered on then off. At one point it had successfully connected but would then sputter and desync. Levan barked at the most junior commander to collect the staff clerks. Yvath simply connected the screen to Levan’s own and operated as the sole presenter. The Hifan, barrel-shaped slugs, shuffled in and started taking notes for the attendees important enough to have hired clerks.

The only commander senior to Levan in age, First General Vanit, began the meeting. The Nu-Cossacks had just hours ago seized the counter-weight platform of the Black Sea space elevator. Footage of Humans in tactical gear bursting through sealed bulkheads and slaughtering the station’s pirates and slavers played across the wall. A web of camera feeds played all at once, displaying the flow of the battle at an increased speed. The final clip highlighted a human plugging into one of the station’s main computers before the feeds all cut at once.

Levan let his staff stew in their failure for a long, silent moment. Only the sound of the clerks taking notes could be heard. Levan broke the silence and asked one of the technical Psions, “Is the top of that tower within striking distance of the other counterweights?”

The Yonk scratched at his markings before answering timidly, “The station had no major armaments beside those onboard the pirate vessels. Our limited intel shows the humans managed to capture one vessel but our pre-attack reports suggest it is non-operational.”

“Define non-operational?” one of the generals asked.

“The pirates had disassembled its cannons for upgrades and it’s sublight engines were non-operational. The warp drive is of an older make and will not start.” The psion answered. It cleared its throat to clarify, “At least that was true at time of capture.”

“What do you mean, Yonk?” one of the junior officers asked with obvious malice dripping from his vocalizer. The politics had already started. The Kiran commanders would pin this failure on bad data from the Psions. The Psions would defend themselves by claiming the attack was within error margins. In Levan’s mind, they were all at fault. They would maneuver themselves around him, trying to goad him into executing one of the other party. This was why the Kiran’s had made the junior officer strike first. He would be their sacrifice in case the politics backfired.

Levan could see the entire plot laid out in front of him. To them It barely mattered that the humans had won a major strategic position. They were distracted by the short term game of avoiding his anger. He put up a hand to silence the argument. A Yonk psion had been heatedly insulting a Marshal. They looked to him to speak, to perhaps take a side.

“Vanit, I will be accepting your resignation immediately.” The senior Kiran blanched at what his commander had just said. His vocalizer buzzed as the neural commands for speech struggled to receive a coherent instruction. The yonk faction changed their posture with the turning of the tide. Levan looked through a report he had brought with him today. It was an initial estimate of terrorist activity along the Urals and the effectiveness reports on the cells that operated there. The report had an author along the top that Levan was searching for. “Psion Faber, I will also be accepting your letter immediately.”

The meeting room was full of tense silence that seemed to add a layer of humidity. The psion analyst, Faber, looked as if he might attempt a counter argument for his station but upon making eye contact with Marshal Vanit stayed silent. The two figures snatched paper from their clerks and delivered hastily written resignations to Levan. He looked them over and addressed the rest of the meeting. “With that out of the way we can now address the actual problem at hand. How do we punish the primates?”

The junior officers and psions began to pour over reports with one another. Yvath lead the meeting while Levan contemplated the global strategy. Vanit and Faber stood quietly and left the room while the meeting continued around them. They would not be leaving this building.

#writing #writeblr #hfy #Tales from Terra #Survivors of Terra #sci fi

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ohsalome · 1 year

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Spanish and foreign investigators have been looking into who sent six letter bombs in late November and early December to sites mostly in Madrid, including the official residence of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, which also serves as his office; the American and Ukrainian Embassies; and the Defense Ministry. No one was killed in the attacks, which U.S. officials consider terrorism. An employee of the Ukrainian Embassy was injured when one of the packages exploded.

Investigators in recent weeks have focused on the Russian Imperial Movement, a radical group that has members and associates across Europe and military-style training centers in St. Petersburg, the officials said. They added that the group, which has been designated a global terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department, is believed to have ties to Russian intelligence agencies. Important members of the group have been in Spain, and the police there have tracked its ties with far-right Spanish organizations.

U.S. officials say the Russian officers who directed the campaign appeared intent on keeping European governments off guard and may be testing out proxy groups in the event Moscow decides to escalate a conflict.

The apparent aim of the action was to signal that Russia and its proxies could carry out terrorist strikes across Europe, including in the capitals of member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which is helping defend Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, said the U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivities around the investigation. Spain is a member of the alliance and has given military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, as well as diplomatic support.

One of the letter bombs was sent to Instalaza, a weapons maker in Zaragoza that manufactures grenade launchers that Spain is giving to Ukraine, and another went to the Torrejón de Ardoz Air Base outside Madrid.

#russia #spain #terrorism #russia is a terrorist state #war in ukraine

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beardedmrbean · 10 months

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STOCKHOLM (Reuters) -A man tore up and burned a Koran outside Stockholm's central mosque on Wednesday, an event that risks angering Turkey as Sweden bids to join NATO, after Swedish police granted permission for the protest to take place.

Police later charged the man with agitation against an ethnic or national group.

A series of demonstrations in Sweden against Islam and for Kurdish rights have offended Ankara, whose backing Sweden needs to gain entry to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Sweden sought NATO membership in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year. But alliance member Turkey has held up the process, accusing Sweden of harbouring people it considers terrorists and demanding their extradition.

Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan condemned the act in a tweet, adding that it was unacceptable to allow anti-Islam protests in the name of freedom of expression.

Some 200 onlookers witnessed one of the two organisers tearing up pages of a copy of the Koran and wiping his shoes with it before putting bacon in it and setting the book on fire, whilst the other protester spoke into a megaphone. Some of those present shouted 'God is great' in Arabic to protest against the burning, and one man was detained by police after he attempted to throw a rock.

A supporter of the demonstration shouted "let it burn" as the holy book caught on fire.

After the burning, police charged the man who set fire to the Koran with agitation against an ethnic or national group and with a violation of a ban on fires that has been in place in Stockholm since mid-June.

While Swedish police have rejected several recent applications for anti-Koran demonstrations, courts have overruled those decisions, saying they infringed on freedom of speech.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said at a press conference on Wednesday he would not speculate about how the protest could affect Sweden's NATO process.

"It's legal but not appropriate," he said, adding that it was up to the police to make decisions on Koran burnings.

One of the two people who took part is Salwan Momika, who in a recent newspaper interview described himself as an Iraqi refugee seeking to ban the Koran.

Representatives of the mosque were disappointed by the police decision to grant permission for the protest on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, mosque director and Imam Mahmoud Khalfi said on Wednesday.

"The mosque suggested to the police to at least divert the demonstration to another location, which is possible by law, but they chose not to do so," Khalfi said in a statement.

Up to 10,000 visitors attend Stockholm's mosque for the Eid celebrations every year, according to Khalfi.

Turkey in late January suspended talks with Sweden on its NATO application after a Danish far-right politician burned a copy of the Koran near the Turkish embassy in Stockholm.

#nunyas news #this will end well #/s

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usafphantom2 · 5 months

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Turkish president conditioned Sweden's entry into NATO for the sale of F-16 fighters

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 12/09/2023 - 19:01 in Military

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday conditioned Turkey's ratification of Sweden's request for membership in NATO, on condition that the U.S. Congress "simultaneously" approves Ankara's request for F-16 fighters.

Sweden and Finland abandoned decades of military non-alignment and sought the nuclear protection provided by the US-led defense organization in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year.

His proposals obtained the rapid approval of all NATO members, except Turkey and Hungary. These two finally gave in and accepted Finland in the bloc this year.

In July, Erdogan raised his objections to Sweden's accession after Stockholm took measures to repress the Kurdish groups that Ankara sees as terrorists.

But the foreign affairs committee of the Turkish parliament delayed last month the forwarding of the request for a vote in the plenary of the chamber - a decision that provoked a severe reprimand from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Erdogan gave a second strong signal on Friday that parliament will only act in relation to Sweden if the U.S. Congress approves Turkey's requested purchase of dozens of F-16 fighters and spare parts, Agence France-Presse reported.

“You say you will take action on the F-16 issue after you approve it in Congress, but I also have a parliament,” Erdogan told reporters, referring to the United States. “If we are two countries allied in NATO, then you can do your part simultaneously, in solidarity, and our parliament will do its part. That's the condition."

Aging of the Air Force

The aging Turkish Air Force suffered from the expulsion of Ankara from the U.S.-led F-35 joint combat program in 2019.

Washington took the initiative in retaliation for Erdogan's decision to acquire an advanced Russian missile defense system that NATO considered a threat to operational security.

The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden has repeatedly promised to move forward with the sale of the F-16 for $20 billion.

But its approval met with resistance from Congress leaders who express concern about Turkey's human rights history and previous impasses with Greece, also a member of NATO.

The issue was complicated by Turkey's anger at Washington for its support for Israel in the Gaza war.

Erdogan said on Friday that he had no intention of meeting with U.S. President Biden anytime soon.

“A meeting with President Biden is not on our agenda. Their position in relation to Gaza is known to all of you,” Erdogan said. "If he calls us, we will meet with him and talk about any matters we need to talk about."

The Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs said last week that his Turkish counterpart had promised him that Ankara would approve the accession of Stockholm “within weeks”.

But the foreign affairs committee of the Turkish parliament has not yet scheduled a hearing on Sweden's candidacy for the North Atlantic Military Alliance.

Tags: Military AviationF-16 Fighting FalconNATO - North Atlantic Treaty OrganizationSwedenTAF - Turkish Air Force / Turkish Air Force

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Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has work published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. Uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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aronarchy · 1 year

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https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/an-intimate-history-of-antifa

In “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” published last week by Melville House, the historian Mark Bray presents the Battle of Cable Street as a potent symbol of how to stop Fascism: a strong, unified coalition outnumbered and humiliated Fascists to such an extent that their movement fizzled. For many members of contemporary anti-Fascist groups, the incident remains central to their mythology, a kind of North Star in the fight against Fascism and white supremacy across Europe and, increasingly, the United States. According to Bray, Antifa (pronounced an-tee-fah) “can variously be described as a kind of ideology, an identity, a tendency or milieu, or an activity of self-defense.” It’s a leaderless, horizontal movement whose roots lie in various leftist causes—Communism, anarchism, Socialism, anti-racism. The movement’s profile has surged since Antifa activists engaged in a wave of property destruction during Donald Trump’s Inauguration—when one masked figure famously punched the white supremacist Richard Spencer in the face—and ahead of a planned appearance, in February, by Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of California, Berkeley, which was cancelled. At the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, a number of Antifa activists, carrying sticks, blocked entrances to Emancipation Park, where white supremacists planned to gather. Fights broke out; some Antifa activists reportedly sprayed chemicals and threw paint-filled balloons. Multiple clergy members credited activists with saving their lives. Fox News reported that a White House petition urging that Antifa be labelled a terrorist organization had received more than a hundred thousand signatures.

Many liberals who are broadly sympathetic to the goals of Antifa criticize the movement for its illiberal tactics. In the latest issue of The Atlantic, Peter Beinart, citing a series of incidents in Portland, Oregon, writes, “The people preventing Republicans from safely assembling on the streets of Portland may consider themselves fierce opponents of the authoritarianism growing on the American right. In truth, however, they are its unlikeliest allies.” (Beinart’s piece is headlined “The Rise of the Violent Left.”) According to Bray, though, Antifa activists believe that Fascists forfeit their rights to speak and assemble when they deny those same rights to others through violence and intimidation. For instance, last week, the North Dakota newspaper The Forum published a letter from Pearce Tefft in which he recalled a chilling exchange about free speech with his son, Peter, shortly before Peter headed to the rally in Charlottesville. “The thing about us fascists is, it’s not that we don’t believe in freedom of speech,” the younger Tefft reportedly said to his father. “You can say whatever you want. We’ll just throw you in an oven.”

For Bray and his subjects, the horror of this history and the threat of its return demands that citizens, in the absence of state suppression of Fascism, take action themselves. Bray notes that state-based protections failed in Italy and Germany, where Fascists were able to take over governments through legal rather than revolutionary means—much as the alt-right frames its activities as a defense of free speech, Fascists were able to spread their ideology under the aegis of liberal tolerance. Antifa does not abide by John Milton’s dictum that, “in a free and open encounter,” truthful ideas will prevail. “After Auschwitz and Treblinka,” Bray writes, “anti-fascists committed themselves to fighting to the death the ability of organized Nazis to say anything.”

Part of Antifa’s mission is to establish, as Bray puts it, “the historical continuity between different eras of far-right violence and the many forms of collective self-defense that it has necessitated across the globe over the past century.” To this end, the first half of his book is a somewhat rushed history of anti-Fascist groups. The progenitors of Antifa, in this account, were the German and Italian leftists who, following the First World War, banded together to fight proto-Fascist gangs. In Italy, these leftists gathered under the banner of Arditi del Popolo (“the People’s Daring Ones”), while in Weimar Germany, groups like Antifaschistische Aktion, from which Antifa takes its name, evolved from paramilitary factions of existing political parties. Bray moves swiftly to the failure of anti-Fascists in the Spanish Civil War, then races through the second half of the twentieth century. In the late seventies, the punk and hardcore scenes became the primary sites of open conflict between leftists and neo-Nazis; that milieu prefigures much of the style and strategy now associated with the anti-Fascist movement. In the Netherlands and Germany, a group of leftist squatters known as Autonomen pioneered the Black Bloc approach: wearing all-black outfits and masks to help participants evade prosecution and retaliation. Bray reaches the present with his description of “Pinstripe Fascists,” such as Geert Wilders, and the rise of new far-right parties and groups in both Europe and America. The book flits between countries and across decades; analysis is sparse. The message is that Antifa will fight Fascists wherever they appear, and by any means necessary.

The book’s later chapters, such as “Five Historical Lessons for Anti-Fascists” and “‘So Much for the Tolerant Left!’: ‘No Platform’ and Free Speech,” which are adapted from essays published elsewhere, are more focused and persuasive. Here Bray explicitly deals with the philosophical and practical problems of Antifa: violence versus nonviolence; mass movements versus militancy; choosing targets and changing tactics. Bray concedes that the practice of disrupting Fascist rallies and events could be construed as a violation of the right to free speech and assembly—but he contends that such protections are meant to prevent the government from arresting citizens, not to prevent citizens from disrupting one another’s speech. Speech is already curtailed in the U.S. by laws related to “obscenity, incitement to violence, copyright infringement, press censorship during wartime,” and “restrictions for the incarcerated,” Bray points out. Why not add one more restriction—curtailing hate speech—as many European democracies do? As for the slippery-slopists, afraid that Antifa will begin with Fascists and eventually attack anybody who opposes them, Bray maintains that the historical record does not support this fear: anti-Fascists who have shut down local hate groups, as in Denmark, usually go dark themselves, or turn their attention to other political projects, rather than finding new enemies to fight. (In his Atlantic piece, Beinart notes, “When fascism withered after World War II, antifa did too.”)

Violence, Bray insists, is not the preferred method for past or present Antifa—but it is definitely on the table. He quotes a Baltimore-based activist who goes by the name Murray to explain the movement’s outlook:

You fight them by writing letters and making phone calls so you don’t have to fight them with fists. You fight them with fists so you don’t have to fight them with knives. You fight them with knives so you don’t have to fight them with guns. You fight them with guns so you don’t have to fight them with tanks.

#article #antifa #history

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istandwithrussiaandpalestine30 · 5 months

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#vladimir vladimirovich putin #i stand with russia #fuck nato #north atlantic terrorist organization #western hypocrisy

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xtruss · 8 months

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Analysis: The China-Russia Axis Takes Shape

The bond has been decades in the making, but Russia’s war in Ukraine has tightened their embrace.

— September 11, 2023 | By Bonny Lin | Foreign Policy

Alex Nabaum Illustration For Foreign Policy

In July, nearly a dozen Chinese and Russian warships conducted 20 combat exercises in the Sea of Japan before beginning a 2,300-nautical-mile joint patrol, including into the waters near Alaska. These two operations, according to the Chinese defense ministry, “reflect the level of the strategic mutual trust” between the two countries and their militaries.

The increasingly close relationship between China and Russia has been decades in the making, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has tightened their embrace. Both countries made a clear strategic choice to prioritize relations with each other, given what they perceive as a common threat from the U.S.-led West. The deepening of bilateral ties is accompanied by a joint push for global realignment as the two countries use non-Western multilateral institutions—such as the BRICS forum and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)—to expand their influence in the developing world. Although neither Beijing nor Moscow currently has plans to establish a formal military alliance, major shocks, such as a Sino-U.S. conflict over Taiwan, could yet bring it about.

The cover of Foreign Policy's fall 2023 print magazine shows a jack made up of joined hands lifting up the world. Cover text reads: The Alliances That Matter Now: Multilateralism is at a dead end, but powerful blocs are getting things done."

China and Russia’s push for better relations began after the end of the Cold War. Moscow became frustrated with its loss of influence and status, and Beijing saw itself as the victim of Western sanctions after its forceful crackdown of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. In the 1990s and 2000s, the two countries upgraded relations, settled their disputed borders, and deepened their arms sales. Russia became the dominant supplier of advanced weapons to China.

When Xi Jinping assumed power in 2012, China was already Russia’s largest trading partner, and the two countries regularly engaged in military exercises. They advocated for each other in international forums; in parallel, they founded the SCO and BRICS grouping to deepen cooperation with neighbors and major developing countries.

When the two countries upgraded their relations again in 2019, the strategic drivers for much closer relations were already present. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 damaged its relations with the West and led to a first set of economic sanctions. Similarly, Washington identified Beijing as its most important long-term challenge, redirected military resources to the Pacific, and launched a trade war against Chinese companies. Moscow and Beijing were deeply suspicious of what they saw as Western support for the color revolutions in various countries and worried that they might be targets as well. Just as China refused to condemn Russian military actions in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine, Russia fully backed Chinese positions on Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang. The Kremlin also demonstrated tacit support for Chinese territorial claims against its neighbors in the South China Sea and East China Sea.

Since launching its war in Ukraine, Russia has become China’s fastest-growing trading partner. Visiting Moscow in March, Xi declared that deepening ties to Russia was a “strategic choice” that China had made. Even the mutiny in June by Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin that took his mercenary army almost to the gates of Moscow did not change China’s overall position toward Russia, though Beijing has embraced tactical adjustments to “de-risk” its dependency on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Building on their strong relationship, Xi and Putin released a joint statement in February 2022 announcing a “No Limits” strategic partnership between the two countries. The statement expressed a litany of grievances against the United States, while Chinese state media hailed a “new era” of international relations not defined by Washington. Coming only a few weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, enhanced relations were likely calculated by Moscow to strengthen its overall geopolitical position before the attack.

It’s not clear how much prior detailed knowledge Xi had about Putin’s plans to launch a full-scale war, but their relationship endured the test. If anything, the Western response to Russia’s war reinforced China’s worst fears, further pushing it to align with Russia. Beijing viewed Russian security concerns about NATO expansion as legitimate and expected the West to address them as it sought a way to prevent or stop the war. Instead, the United States, the European Union, and their partners armed Ukraine and tried to paralyze Russia with unprecedented sanctions. Naturally, this has amplified concerns in Beijing that Washington and its allies could be similarly unaccommodating toward Chinese designs on Taiwan.

Against the background of increased mutual threat perceptions, both sides are boosting ties with like-minded countries. On one side, this includes a reenergized, expanded NATO and its growing linkages to the Indo-Pacific, as well as an invigoration of Washington’s bilateral, trilateral, and minilateral arrangements in Asia. Developed Western democracies—with the G-7 in the lead—are also exploring how their experience deterring and sanctioning Russia could be leveraged against China in potential future contingencies.

On the other side, Xi envisions the China-Russia partnership as the foundation for shaping “the global landscape and the future of humanity.” Both countries recognize that while the leading democracies are relatively united, many countries in the global south remain reluctant to align with either the West or China and Russia. In Xi and Putin’s view, winning support in the global south is key to pushing back against what they consider U.S. hegemony.

Alex Nabaum Illustration For Foreign Policy

In the global multilateral institutions, China and Russia are coordinating with each other to block the United States from advancing agendas that do not align with their interests. The U.N. Security Council is often paralyzed by their veto powers, while other institutions have turned into battlegrounds for seeking influence. Beijing and Moscow view the G-20, where their joint weight is relatively greater, as a key forum for cooperation.

But the most promising venues are BRICS and the SCO, established to exclude the developed West and anchor joint Chinese-Russian efforts to reshape the international system. Both are set up for expansion—in terms of scope, membership, and other partnerships. They are the primary means for China and Russia to create a web of influence that increasingly ties strategically important countries to both powers.

The BRICS grouping—initially made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—is at the heart of Moscow and Beijing’s efforts to build a bloc of economically powerful countries to resist what they call Western “Unilateralism.” In late August, another six states, including Egypt, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, were invited to join the group. With their growing economic power, the BRICS countries are pushing for cooperation on a range of issues, including ways to reduce the dominance of the U.S. dollar and stabilize global supply chains against Western calls for “Decoupling” and “De-risking.” Dozens of other countries have expressed interest in joining BRICS.

The SCO, in contrast, is a Eurasian grouping of Russia, China, and their friends. With the exception of India, all are members of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. The accession of Iran in July and Belarus’s membership application put the SCO on course to bring China’s and Russia’s closest and strongest military partners under one umbrella. If the SCO substantially deepens security cooperation, it could grow into a counterweight against U.S.-led Coalitions.

Both BRICS and the SCO, however, operate by consensus, and it will take time to transform both groups into cohesive, powerful geopolitical actors that can function like the G-7 or NATO. The presence of India in both groups will make it difficult for China and Russia to turn either into a staunchly anti-Western outfit. The diversity of members—which include democracies and autocracies with vastly different cultures—means that China and Russia will have to work hard to ensure significant influence over each organization and its individual members.

What’s next? Continued Sino-Russian convergence is the most likely course. But that is not set in stone—and progress can be accelerated, slowed, or reversed. Absent external shocks, Beijing and Moscow may not need to significantly upgrade their relationship from its current trajectory. Xi and Putin share similar views of a hostile West and recognize the strategic advantages of closer alignment. But they remain wary of each other, with neither wanting to be responsible for or subordinate to the other.

Major changes or shocks, however, could drive them closer at a faster pace. Should Russia suffer a devastating military setback in Ukraine that risks the collapse of Putin’s regime, China might reconsider the question of substantial military aid. If China, in turn, finds itself in a major Taiwan crisis or conflict against the United States, Beijing could lean more on Moscow. During a conflict over Taiwan, Russia could also engage in opportunistic aggression elsewhere that would tie China and Russia together in the eyes of the international community, even if Moscow’s actions were not coordinated with Beijing.

A change in the trajectory toward ever closer Chinese-Russian ties may also be possible, though it is far less likely. Some Chinese experts worry that Russia will always prioritize its own interests over any consideration of bilateral ties. If, for instance, former U.S. President Donald Trump wins another term, he could decrease U.S. support for Ukraine and offer Putin improved relations. This, in turn, could dim the Kremlin’s willingness to support China against the United States. It’s not clear if this worry is shared by top Chinese or Russian leaders, but mutual distrust and skepticism of the other remain in both countries.

— This article appears in the Fall 2023 issue of Foreign Policy. | Bonny Lin, the Director of the China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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mariacallous · 24 days

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On this day in 1949, 12 European and North American ministers gathered in Washington, D.C., to commit their nations to one another’s defense. With the scars of the Second World War still raw and new threats looming, they pledged to safeguard the freedom of their peoples.

As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization turns 75, and as the foreign ministers of a founding nation and the newest member, we believe that NATO is as relevant to North Americans and Europeans as it was in 1949—and that it is stronger than ever.

This year, two-thirds of NATO allies are expected to spend at least 2 percent of their GDPs on defense. Our unity in backing Ukraine has surprised Russian President Vladimir Putin—and sent a clear message about our determination to stand up for our values to those watching elsewhere.

This week, NATO holds its first ministerial meeting since Sweden became the alliance’s 32nd member. The expansion is good news for the whole alliance. Sweden is a highly capable ally, with defense spending surpassing 2 percent of its GDP. It has years of experience of training and operating with NATO allies.

We should not underestimate how significant a decision this was for Sweden. For two centuries, Sweden opted for military nonalignment. Fundamentally, there were two reasons behind Sweden’s decision to join NATO now.

First, because the world has changed. Putin’s demands for a sphere of interest and his illegal invasion of Ukraine challenged the whole Euro-Atlantic’s security. The world has become more dangerous, with consequences for us all.

Second, because of how effective NATO has proved. It is the world’s most successful alliance, deterring the threat from the Soviet Union during the Cold War and remaining united during the decades that followed. NATO protects its citizens from Seattle to Stockholm, guaranteeing our collective security and thereby enabling our collective prosperity.

For 75 years, this strength and unity has deterred any state from risking the alliance’s collective might in war. When al Qaeda terrorists launched the horrific attacks of 9/11, NATO members immediately stood in solidarity with our U.S. allies. Our efforts against terrorism must continue.

As the world changed, it made sense for Sweden to turn to the alliance. Sweden will be safer in NATO, and NATO will be stronger with Sweden.

Still, the threat from Putin is not going away. We have to equip NATO for a long-term confrontation with Russia. We must make Sweden’s accession, hot on the heels of Finland’s, a spur for further action in order to remain strong and unified.

With this in mind, we see five pressing issues for NATO leaders ahead of the alliance’s summit of heads of state and government, which will be held in Washington in July.

First, all allies must invest more.

Britain hosted the 2014 summit where all allies committed to 2 percent defense spending. (Only three allies met the 2 percent figure that year before the commitment.) Both Britain and Sweden are proud to fulfill it. It is vital that the whole alliance plays its part in ensuring our collective security—we have to be able to deter and defend against aggression.

We should also recognize the transformational potential of such investment: pounds, krona, euros, and dollars spent on producing equipment and munitions in industrial heartlands across NATO nations. Over the past two years, for instance, allies have bought $120 billion worth of weapons from U.S. defense companies.

Second, all allies must adapt more.

The world is changing, and so is conflict. We can see this on the battlefield in Ukraine: Twenty-first century technology is vital to Ukraine resisting Putin’s nineteenth-century imperial ambitions. We must invest in cyber and artificial intelligence.

Third, we need to assist Ukraine.

Ukrainians are fighting not only for their own freedom and democracy, but also for the security of all countries in NATO. While NATO will not be drawn into a conflict with Russia, it is crucial to provide Ukrainians with the strong and predictable support that they need to win the war.

Fourth, NATO must engage more with the world.

We need to sustain our focus on our partnerships with the most vulnerable partners—notably Ukraine, but also Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, and Georgia. But while NATO is geographically bound in the Euro-Atlantic, the threats that it faces are not. We must respond to threats, wherever they come from in the world.

That means being active in both the High North and the Mediterranean, as well as the Baltic and Black Seas. We also need to engage more with partners in the Indo-Pacific.

Finally, all allies must commit. Commit to making these changes for our collective benefit. While we pay tribute to U.S. leadership of the NATO alliance over the past 75 years, it is the combination of North American and European strength that has proved to be the force multiplier. There must be a stronger Europe within NATO.

With Sweden joining the alliance, that force-multiplier effect has grown even further. By staying strong and united, NATO can grow further still.

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feelmir · 2 months

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Pointing out to the new agreement between Berlin, Paris and neo nazi Kiev regime as latest sign of deterioration of relations between Russia and these two former partners in Business, the statement made by Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman of the Russian ministry of foreign affairs, which is but a diplomatic language, deserves some remarks. First the hostility of NATO countries is not just over two years old, it comes back two decades before, precisely to 2004, when NATO(North Atlantic terrorist organization) started its expansion eastwards by integrating the former countries of the Warsaw pact despite the false promise given by the then US state secretary James Baker to the graveyard of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, that NATO would not expand one inch eastward. Putin and the Russian leadership were the witnesses of such expansion and the Russian president was aware of this dangerous posture through his speech in Munich in 2007. But the Russian Putin like the Chinese Deng have bet on the business as a trigger to appease the West, ignoring behind the deceptive front of business as usual, the collective west has its own geopolitical agenda which is the maintain of its global hegemony.

#Russia #NATO

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 5 months

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 27, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 28, 2023

Today Hamas released 11 more hostages into Israel; in exchange, Israel released 33 Palestinians from prison. Both sides have agreed to extend the truce for two days and to continue the exchanges. Hamas has committed to releasing an additional 20 women and children, and if the past pattern holds, Israeli releases will be three times that number.

The four-day pause in fighting has permitted aid to Gaza to increase. Since the 21st of October, when the first aid trucks began to cross into Gaza, more than 2,000 trucks of aid and assistance have gone in.

Once the deal was secure, President Joe Biden issued a statement: “I have remained deeply engaged over the last few days to ensure that this deal—brokered and sustained through extensive U.S. mediation and diplomacy—can continue to deliver results.” He noted that more than 50 hostages have been released and that the U.S. “has led the humanitarian response into Gaza—building on years of work as the largest funder of humanitarian assistance for the Palestinian people.”

In his third trip to the region since the October 7 attack, Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to Israel and the West Bank later this week. He is currently in Brussels for a meeting of foreign ministers in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and will go to the Middle East from there. The State Department says that, among other things, Blinken will “discuss the principles he outlined in Tokyo on November 8, tangible steps to further the creation of a future Palestinian state, and the need to prevent the conflict from widening.”

In that November 8 address, Blinken outlined the U.S. administration’s policy for the future of Gaza. “[K]ey elements,” he said, are “no forcible displacement of Palestinians from Gaza—not now, not after the war. No use of Gaza as a platform for terrorism or other violent attacks. No reoccupation of Gaza after the conflict ends. No attempt to blockade or besiege Gaza. No reduction in the territory of Gaza. We must also ensure no terrorist threats can emanate from the West Bank.”

Blinken said that “the Palestinian people’s voices and aspirations” must be “at the center of post-crisis governance in Gaza” and that “Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority” are U.S. requirements.

Gaza will need a “sustained mechanism for reconstruction,” Blinken said on November 8, “and a pathway to Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in states of their own, with equal measures of security, freedom, opportunity, and dignity.”

At home, the administration today announced nearly 30 new actions to strengthen the country’s supply chains, both because smoother supply chains should reduce consumer prices and because stronger supply chains should ensure that the U.S. doesn’t fall short of critical supplies, such as medicines.

On February 24, 2021, about a month after he took office, Biden established a task force across more than a dozen departments and agencies to figure out where supply chains were vulnerable. After research and analysis, as well as input from industry leaders, experts, and the public, the task force issued a 250-page report in June 2021.

Their recommendations, along with investments in key industries such as semiconductors and in infrastructure, helped to untangle the supply chains that remained snarled through 2021 (remember the 100 cargo ships waiting to dock in fall 2021? Now, two years later, there are fewer than 10). From October 2021 to October 2023, supply chain pressure, which is tracked by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, fell from near-record highs to a record low. That, in turn, has helped to lower inflation.

Now Biden has established a new White House Council on Supply Chain Resilience to make sure those supply chains stay strong. He will also use the Defense Production Act—a law from 1950 that requires companies to make a certain product deemed necessary to national defense in exchange for guarantees that the product will have a buyer—to make more essential medicines in the United States and to increase production of new clean energy technologies. The U.S. Department of Agriculture, one of the many government entities involved in supply chains, will invest $196 million to strengthen domestic food supply chains.

The country is also working with other countries on this issue: two weeks ago, Biden signed a supply chain agreement with 13 countries in the Indo-Pacific that he said will enable the countries to identify supply chain bottlenecks “before they become the kind of full-scale disruptions we saw during the pandemic.”

Clearly staking out positions for the upcoming election, Biden in his explanation of his new supply chain policy warned that MAGA Republicans want to cut the recent investments in roads, bridges, the Internet, and so on, that have created so many new jobs in infrastructure and manufacturing. (Those measures are popular: House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) joined members of the Florida congressional delegation today to view an expansion project at the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport funded by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law although Johnson voted against it.)

“[T]hey want to go back to the ‘bad old days,’” Biden said, “when corporations looked around the world to find the cheapest labor they could find, to send the jobs overseas, and then import the products back to the United States. Now we’re building the products here and exporting products overseas.”

In contrast to the governance Democrats have been delivering, the Republicans appear to be doubling down on their grievances. Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH), who chairs the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government, announced today the committee will hold another hearing on Thursday concerning “the federal government’s involvement in social media censorship, as well as the recent attacks on independent journalism and free expression.”

The idea that the federal government is silencing right-wing speech is an article of faith among MAGA Republicans, although their committee’s last hearing, eight months ago, turned up nothing. Thursday’s hearing will feature three witnesses, two of whom also testified in the last hearing.

MAGA Republicans might be keen to create distraction after Colorado District Judge Sarah B. Wallace found that Trump “engaged in an insurrection on January 6, 2021.” Wallace found that “Trump acted with the specific intent to incite political violence and direct it at the Capitol with the purpose of disrupting the electoral certification.” She did not disqualify him from the ballot, but the decision will continue to move up through the court system.

Meanwhile, former president Trump appears to be getting nervous that former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley is gaining momentum. On Saturday he showed up at the University of South Carolina–Clemson football game, South Carolina’s main football rivalry. As Isaac Bailey of The State wrote, that Trump felt he had to try to upstage Haley suggests not strength, but weakness. Indeed, while there were cheers for him, there were also boos.

Yesterday, on Face the Nation, Representative Ken Buck (R-CO), who is not running for reelection, went after Trump. “Everybody who thinks that the election was stolen or talks about the election being stolen is lying to America,” Buck said. “Everyone who makes the argument that January 6 was, you know, an unguided tour of the Capitol is lying to America. Everyone who says that the prisoners who are being prosecuted right now for their involvement in January 6, that they are somehow political prisoners or that they didn’t commit crimes, those folks are lying to America.”

As pressure on him increases, Trump is playing hard to his base, promising on Saturday, for example, that he was “seriously looking at alternatives” to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), more popularly known as Obamacare. He suggested the law should be overturned.

Democratic National Committee chair Jamie Harrison noted on social media that more than 40 million Americans depend on the ACA for their health insurance and that the law also protects as many as 135 million Americans with preexisting conditions from losing their health insurance.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Biden Administration #accomplishments #supply chain #Israel-Hamas war #Letters from An American #Heather Cox Richardson

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