One key fact was absent from virtually all of the reporting around the astonishing events of this past week. It was scarcely mentioned in stories about the Munich Security Conference, the call between Presidents Trump and Putin, the freezing out of the Europeans, the jaw-dropping statements by US Defence Secretary Hegseth, the ending of cherished plans to expand NATO into Ukraine, and the historic face-to-face meeting between Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Riyadh. The missed central point: Russia has, in effective terms, won the war where it counts – on the battlefield. That more than anything is driving the calculus in Washington. (more…)
Eugene Doyle
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Will New Zealand invade the Cook Islands to stop China?
New Zealand’s leading newspaper, the New Zealand Herald, screamed out this headline on 10 February: “Should New Zealand invade the Cook Islands?” (more…)
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Trump and foolish old men who redraw maps
It generally ends badly. An old tyrant embarks on an ill-considered project that involves redrawing maps. They are heedless to wise counsel and indifferent to indigenous interests or experience. Before they fail, are killed, deposed or otherwise disposed of, these vicious old men can cause immense harm. (more…)
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Is Romania’s stolen election what’s in store for ‘democracy’ in the West?
To save democracy, the US and the European elites appear to have found it necessary to destroy democracy. For the first time ever an election was overturned in an EU/NATO country. Ever. There were no allegations of voting irregularities – it was about whether Russia had spent money on a Tik Tok influence campaign to support the eventual winner of the first round. If that sounds an unconvincing reason for such an historic event, the truth (see below) is even weirder. (more…)
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Niger, stolen billions and the uranium-fuelled lights of Paris
This story is about vast quantities of uranium, stealing squillions of dollars, how to screw desperately poor people and what an outstanding job the mainstream media does in keeping us all blithely ignorant of this. (more…)
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“All I wanted was to bid my daughter a final farewell.” Hostages and the mainstream media
Watching footage of Palestinian parliamentarian and hostage Khalida Jarrar emerge from Israeli captivity was jarring – a far, muffled cry from the sense of happiness and relief most of us felt seeing the young female Israeli soldiers released by Hamas around the same time. What a study in contrast. (more…)
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Reality hits home: “Ukraine is running out of Ukrainians,” says US Secretary of State
Back at the very start of the war retired US Ambassador Chas Freeman, an eloquent critic of many aspects of his government’s international conduct, warned that the US was prepared “to fight to the last Ukrainian”. Some want to prove him right. Others want to save the remaining young men of Ukraine. (more…)
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Marwan Barghouti – the world’s most important hostage – must be released
A litmus test of Israel’s commitment to abandon genocide and start down the road towards lasting peace is whether they choose to release the most important of all the hostages, Marwan Barghouti. During the past 22 years in Israeli prisons he has been beaten, tortured, sexually molested and had limbs broken. What hasn’t been broken is the spirit of the greatest living Palestinian – a symbol of his people’s ‘legendary steadfastness’ and determination to win freedom from occupation and resist the genocidal forces of the US, Israel and their Western enablers like Australia and New Zealand. (more…)
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Trump is cutting the last threads of the tattered cloth of ‘the rules-based international order’
What do Panama, Canada and Greenland have in common? Could Donald Trump be getting the US back to brass tacks, to a core strategy of dominating the Western Hemisphere? Possibly, and he may be blowing away the fraudulent rhetoric about rules-based international order, territorial integrity, international law and the crusade to expand democracies.
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The rule of the Oligarchs and Machines is here
Ordinary humanity faces an emerging threat from the combined might of the Human Elites (billionaires and the military-political class) working with perhaps the greatest power the planet has ever seen: artificial intelligence. Their combined might has the potential to totally screw us. Happy New Year everyone.
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Best of 2024: The Ukraine war is lost. Three options remain
George Beebe, long-time head of Russia analysis at the CIA, a 27-year veteran of the agency and now the current head of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute in Washington, is just the kind of American the world needs right now. Understated, immensely knowledgeable and decent, he understands the Russo-Ukraine war in its widest sense and says three options remain open, only one that does not risk disaster for us all. (more…)
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Christ wasn’t born in a stable so that Palestinians could be born in tents
I just attended a wonderful Christmas concert at St Mary of the Angels in Wellington – the Bach Choir, the Chiesa Ensemble and excellent soloists sent a thrill through my body. The final piece, Gloria by Antonio Vivaldi, triggered these thoughts. (more…)
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Killing Russian general won’t stop reality crashing in on Ukraine
States don’t tend to kill each other’s generals, not least because it invites reciprocal action. The bombing in Moscow this week, killing General Igor Kirillov, was a successful attack by Ukraine and its allies. The ongoing use of long-range missiles by the West to hit targets inside Russia is, I suggest, surprisingly similar. both are designed to provoke a reaction rather than to achieve anything militarily. They can’t alter battlefield realities. It says a lot about where we have got to in the Ukraine war. (more…)
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The dismemberment of Syria is a crime
What we are witnessing is not just the end of a regime but quite possibly the destruction of the Syrian state. We are being told by the Western media that we should join Benjamin Netanyahu, Joe Biden and the Europeans in celebrating what risks being the creation of yet another failed state in the Middle East/West Asia. (more…)
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The demon in the mirror
Incoming US President Donald Trump will force us, as citizens of the ‘West’, to face the demon in the mirror. (more…)
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In the death throes of Ukraine’s lost war, we witness the birth of WWIII
In the space of a couple of days this week two completely unprecedented attacks occurred that have the potential to rewrite world history. The US and UK directly attacked Russia and, for the first time ever in war, an Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile was fired – by Russia. Naturally, most people in the West paid little attention. (more…)
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Defying settler colonialism
Far from the killing grounds of Gaza, an incredible display of defiance to settler colonialism has broken out in, of all places, New Zealand. The two projects – Israel and New Zealand’s – are linked more than many would like to think. Palestinian leaders raise their voices in support of New Zealand’s Māori people at this critical moment. (more…)
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BBC goes full Goebbels in support of Israeli soccer hooligans
“IDF will fuck the Arabs!”, “Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there!” Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans chanting on 8 November, as reported by The Times of Israel. Yet the BBC just compared them to Jewish victims of the Nazi pogroms. Why this story matters is because of the outsized influence of the BBC – its content is shared as gospel by countless other broadcasters. (more…)
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The axis of genocide
The West, “will stand by the Israeli regime until they exterminate the last Palestinian”, says Mohammad Seyed Marandi, an American-Iranian academic. “They will allow the extermination of the people of Gaza. And then if the Israelis go after the West Bank, they will allow for that to happen as well. Under no circumstances do I see the West blocking extermination…” (more…)
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The Ukraine war is lost. Three options remain
George Beebe, long-time head of Russia analysis at the CIA, a 27-year veteran of the agency and now the current head of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute in Washington, is just the kind of American the world needs right now. Understated, immensely knowledgeable and decent, he understands the Russo-Ukraine war in its widest sense and says three options remain open, only one that does not risk disaster for us all. (more…)
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To Jews and Christians of faith: you can’t sit out a genocide
This week I read an article in Al Jazeera describing the killing in one day of hundreds of Palestinian civilians. The same day I read a piece in CNN, “Israeli soldiers returning from war struggle with trauma and suicide”. The article tried to elicit sympathy for soldiers who were traumatised from bulldozing Palestinians. (more…)
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US is spending $28 billion on Sinophobic propaganda to colonise your brain
Whoever owns the narrative owns the world – and things just got a lot tougher for those of us opposed to the metastasising brain cancer known as US influence campaigns – or “perception management”. (more…)
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Yahya Sinwar – history will judge the living and the dead
The political and military leader of Hamas is dead. Some cheer. Some weep. History will judge the living and the dead. I wish Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar had appeared before an international tribunal of judges for their role in October 7th, rather than being murdered by the Israelis. All who committed crimes in the past year should face justice. (more…)
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Driving VW off a cliff: Germany’s lemming strategy and what it means for us
Something absolutely stupefying is happening in Germany: its iconic auto company, VW, the darling of every Chancellor from Adolf Hitler to Olaf Scholz, appears to be in a death spiral. At the end of this story I’ll draw a link to the salutary lesson countries like Australia and New Zealand need to draw from the German experience if we are to survive and thrive in the coming world. (more…)
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The US made the Dutch an offer they couldn’t refuse
Hold on to your mobile phones, civilians, this is gonna get rough. If you thought the Sopranos and Corleones were intimidating, check this out. (more…)
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Gaza happened because we forgot Korea
History didn’t start on 7 October. True that. To get a deeper sense of why the shocking destruction in Gaza is happening, we have to revive the forgotten war that the US waged against North Korea in the 1950s. In many ways, it was the template for all that followed. (more…)
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Exiting Pax Americana could save our bacon
Ordinary New Zealanders and Australians have little idea about the momentous changes coming our way. For a couple of centuries we have been outposts of a Western empire that is losing its dominance of the region. (more…)
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Iran is about to attack Israel
Iran may be about to launch a proper missile strike on Israel for the first time ever – in retaliation for the attack on Tehran last month which killed Ismail Haniyeh. Israeli intelligence says an attack is likely to come within days. (more…)
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Team genocide walks out on Nagasaki commemorations
In an astonishing “Fuck you” to the survivors of the 1945 US nuclear bombing of Nagasaki, several Western countries including the US, Australia, Canada, France, Italy and the UK have just dropped a bombshell: reportedly announcing their ambassadors are shunning this week’s commemorations in solidarity with Israel. (more…)
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Rape and genocide: the Israeli war machine we support
The headline above is outrageous and incendiary – it is also unquestionably true. We have a duty to bear witness to what the Palestinians must endure. (more…)