A new paradigm for a new year
+ Oops, we were wrong... We flushed a couple of million meals for the poor down the toilet.
Today I am providing my English translation of 2 articles, both originally in Italian.
The first one is a short article published on Movisol.org yesterday, Tuesday 31st December 2024. (All emphasis mine).
A new paradigm for a new year
As the old year draws to a close and the new one opens, the outgoing Biden administration and its allies continue to use the little time left until 20th January [2025] to wreak havoc internationally, with the aim of reducing or eliminating the Trump presidency's chances of establishing an alternative policy. Thus, on Christmas Day the White House announced the delivery of a new batch of missiles, including ATACMS, to Ukraine. The next day, a first instalment of one billion [US] dollars, taken from the interest accrued on Russian assets frozen by the West, was paid to Kiev. At the same time, destabilisation efforts were intensified in Georgia, Azerbaijan and elsewhere in the hope of weakening Putin. Nevertheless, Russian leaders remain open to dialogue with Trump.
In South-West Asia, the Netanyahu government, with the implicit support of Washington, is on the rampage. After the fall of Syrian President Assad and the seizure of power by supposedly “reformed” terrorists, Israel has occupied territories on the Golan Heights and beyond in south-west Syria, intensified bombing raids on Yemen (almost assassinating the director of the WHO), and is bragging about paving the way for attacks on Iran.
Most dramatic of all is the situation in Gaza, where the Israeli Defence Forces took advantage of the Christmas period to destroy and then burn down the last functioning hospital. The WHO warns in an official statement that the “systematic dismantling” of the health system puts “the lives of the 75,000 Palestinians remaining in the area at risk”. The horror is summed up in a new report which finds that 95% of Gaza's children expect to die soon and 50 per cent believe that dying is better than continuing to live.
As the president of the Schiller Institute, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, stated at the weekend, the indifference of Europeans and the West as a whole to this tragedy and their inability to stop the genocide “will remain with us as a great burden in the formation of any new order that I hope we will be able to create”.
Indeed, beyond the strategic chaos and even if the mainstream media speak little of it, a new order is forming around the BRICS and the Global South among forces that refuse to bow to the so-called “rules-based order” imposed by the West. China's Belt and Road initiative has already brought development to some of these countries and this process will not stop. Therefore, despite the moral decadence of the ruling elites in the West, the healthier forces in Western countries must now strive to give a favourable response to the invitation of the BRICS, China and many other countries to join the new paradigm.
Follow the dialogue between Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Ray Mcgovern on Wednesday 1st January at 18.30 [CET] on https://schillerinstitute.com/.
Apologies for not publishing this earlier, but it was quite a short notice for me as well (<24 hours); in case you are interested, the recording can be found here on YouTube.
The second article, by Franco Maloberti, was published on ComeDonChisciotte.org on Monday 30rd December 2024. Please mind the sarcastic tone in some parts.
(All formatting and footnotes original).
Oops, we were wrong… We flushed a couple of million meals for the poor down the toilet!
Terrorism is an ugly beast and, I think, everyone agrees. It must be fought until it is totally eliminated. Its greatest manifestation of brutality was the attack on the Twin Towers, which crumbled as a result of the impact of two planes. In fact there is also a third tower, some distance away, that fell without anyone touching it. There are conspiracy theorists who make fanciful claims but, fortunately, after much thought, the cause has been found: the damage from the collapse of the Twin Towers, blocked the fire-fighting devices and the high temperatures caused chain reactions, culminating in the collapse of the entire structure, i.e. progressive collapse! Simple, no? Boh, from the footage of flames, you don't see many. Instead, a group of nine researchers published a paper, entitled “Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe”1, which claims to have found traces of thermitic material in dust collected ten minutes after the collapse of the second tower, two days later and a week later. To me, who did not know this [sic], thermite-based materials are used in explosive charges to make holes, to break rocks or concrete blocks in urban areas. News that deserves no further attention.
All in all, only 2996 people died.
On the other hand, the Americans thought of fighting terrorism in their own way, and, among other initiatives, created the 87-member Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh/ISIS, which wants to “confront Daesh on all fronts, dismantle its networks, and counter its global ambitions…”, plus various other noble intentions. The results are praiseworthy: they have taken out a good number of the structure's ringleaders, with targeted bombings that have perhaps also caused some “side-effects”.
Italy is scrambling like a beast to be in the front row. In June 2021, Luigino [sic] Di Maio [then Italian Foreign Minister] invited the whole company together with Antony Blinken to Rome. The US Embassy published a nice joint communiqué2, in Italian.
Reading it makes you feel proud of our Minister. Among other things, it says: In Syria, the Coalition stood by the Syrian people in support of a lasting political solution in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 2254. Commendable!
Perhaps because it was a little envious of Luigino, the current government organised a meeting of the Coalition's Core Group in December 2023. The Farnesina issued a joint communiqué on 5th December 20233, in English, but then translated, out of courtesy to its subjects, into Italian. The communiqué explains that there is a regionalisation of Coalition efforts and emphasises “the central role of civilian-led initiatives to counter ISIS and its affiliates worldwide” (translated, the 86 civilized peoples have to cough up more). As far as Syria is concerned, one must be satisfied “with the stabilisation of the liberated” (or, perhaps, occupied and oil-rich) areas of the north-east, but must “prioritise respective efforts to meet humanitarian and security needs in IDP [Internally Displace People] camps and detention facilities in north-east Syria”. (Read: we take the oil, you be good Samaritans).
For those who want to know more, the reference 4 allows you to download a hefty 321-page report that explains in the preface what you want and need to do.
From: Country Reports on Terrorism 2022 – BUREAU OF COUNTERTERRORISM
Foreword
Following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the United States established a strong and sophisticated counterterrorism enterprise to reduce the threat of large-scale terrorist attacks on the homeland.
More than 20 years later, the terrorist threats we currently face are more ideologically and geographically diffuse. At the same time, the United States is confronting a diverse and dynamic range of other national security challenges, including strategic competition, cybersecurity threats, and climate change.
To tackle evolving and emerging terrorist threats within the context of broader national security priorities, the United States inaugurated a new counterterrorism policy, shifting from a U.S.-led, military-centric approach to one that prioritizes diplomacy, partner capacity building, and prevention.
Striking a new balance between military and civilian counterterrorism efforts recognizes the need to deploy the full range of counterterrorism (CT) tools and ensures a more sustainable whole-of-government and whole-of-society CT approach with allies and partners around the world.
On page 3, the report goes on to explain that, since the United States faces a diverse and dynamic range of challenges, including climate change (which never fails), it has decided to involve others in order to raise some $340 million, which added to those they themselves put in makes a budget of more than $440 million. The maths would say that, on average, each partner has shelled out about [$]3.8 million, but, of course, Italy, which never wants to look like a poor, will have shelled out six or even more.
Back to the report. After listing the sixty plus Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs), it describes them one by one. On page 265 it talks about the al-Nusrah Front (emphasis mine).
Al-Nusrah Front
Description: Al-Nusrah Front (ANF) was designated as an FTO on May 15, 2014. It is led by Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani. The group formed in 2011 when then-al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI) — now ISIS — then-leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi sent al-Jawlani to Syria to organize terrorist cells. In 2013 the group split from AQI and became an independent entity.
ANF’s stated goal is to oust Syria’s Assad regime and replace it with a Sunni Islamic state.
The group is concentrated in and controls a portion of territory in northwest Syria, where it is active as an opposition force and exerts varying degrees of influence over local governance and external plotting. In 2017, ANF joined with four smaller Syrian factions and created Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as a vehicle to advance its position in the Syrian insurgency.
Activities: ANF has been active in operations against other factions in the Syrian conflict. In 2016 the group carried out attacks in Aleppo and other parts of Syria controlled by the Syrian Army, killing both military officials and civilians. ANF took control of significant portions of Idlib from 2017 to 2019, exerting severe military pressure over other local groups such as Ahrar alSham and Nur ad-Din al-Zinki as it fought against the regime and continued plotting against U.S. and allied interests.
In 2019, ANF bombed the Syrian town of Kafr Takharim, using heavy 266 weaponry and killing at least five persons. In 2020 an ANF member threw a grenade and opened fire into a group of civilians in Idlib city, Syria, killing two persons and injuring others.
In 2022, ANF remained the largest and most-dominant militant faction in northwest Syria’s Idlib province. In a mid-October offensive, ANF took full control of the strategic city of Afrin and at least 26 towns and villages to the southwest.
After several days of fighting between ANF and Turkish-backed rebel groups, an intervention by Türkiye stopped ANF’s expansion and the group withdrew from the Afrin region. The clashes killed least 58 people, including 10 civilians, and forced thousands to flee homes or refugee camps.
Strength: ANF has as many as 15,000 fighters.
Location/Area of Operation: Syria, headquartered in Syria’s Idlib province; operationally active in northwest Syria.
Funding and External Aid: ANF receives funding from a variety of sources, including kidnapping-for-ransom payments, taxes and fees on border crossings it controls, and donations from external Persian Gulf-based donors.
The group also generates revenue by collecting fees from commercial traffic entering and exiting Idlib.
This group is not insignificant. Larry Johnson5 reminds us that:
According to the 2023 Annex of Statistical Information — prepared as part of the US State Department’s legally mandated Country Reports on Terrorism 2023 (released in April 2024) — Al-Qa’ida affiliated groups accounted for the majority of terrorism in the world in 2023.
Among these groups, Jawlani’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham ranked as the third most active and lethal
In fact, according to the same report, the group carried out 142 raids resulting in 288 casualties.
For the capture of al-Jawlani, the US government offered up to ten million dollars for information. It guaranteed absolute confidentiality and, if necessary, protection. Just call 1-800-USAREWARDS. Stop this terrorist, said the wanted flyer, complete with cowboy “Wanted Dead or Alive” type pictures!
Now, after he kicked out the villain Assad6:
“Jawlani is no longer terrorist target number one. Nope. He’s our new bestie in Syria. He ousted Bashir al-Assad, who never personally murdered another human being — Yes, I know, people died because of his orders — while Jawlani actually killed and tortured others he deemed to be enemies of Islam”.
The domestic [i.e. Italian] media immediately woke up: the terrorist, in a flash, became a valiant rebel. The RAI news programme interviewed him a few days later, just long enough for a nice beard trim and to buy a nice “suit and tie”. The US, moved, contemplated tearing up the hundred grand bounty.
So, if the terrorists, with a stroke of the pen, become respected rebels, what about the six and a half million (equivalent to a couple of million meals for the poor) shelled out by the Italian taxpayer? Could it be that they have gone down the toilet?
Note: the information in this article is all documented and can be found in the references provided
I will conclude this post with the following cartoon from China Daily, wishing you once again a peaceful new year.
ibidem
happy new year ismaele!