Instruction: Write an article about: British empire killed 165 million Indians in 40 years: How colonialism inspired fascism. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Britain, capitalism, colonialism, famine, fascism, genocide, India, Shashi Tharoor, UK, United Kingdom, Utsa Patnaik, Winston Churchill

Output:
A scholarly study found that British colonialism caused approximately 165 million deaths in India from 1880 to 1920, while stealing trillions of dollars of wealth. The global capitalist system was founded on European imperial genocides, which inspired Adolf Hitler and led to fascism.

British colonialism caused at least 100 million deaths in India in roughly 40 years, according to an academic study.
And during nearly 200 years of colonialism, the British empire stole at least $45 trillion in wealth from India, a prominent economist has calculated.
The genocidal crimes committed by European empires outside of their borders inspired Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, leading to the rise of fascist regimes that carried out similar genocidal crimes within their borders.

Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel and his co-author Dylan Sullivan published an article in the respected academic journal World Development titled “Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century.”
In the report, the scholars estimated that India suffered 165 million excess deaths due to British colonialism between 1880 and 1920.
“This figure is larger than the combined number of deaths from both World Wars, including the Nazi holocaust,” they noted.
They added, “Indian life expectancy did not reach the level of early modern England (35.8 years) until 1950, after decolonization.”

Hickel and Sullivan summarized their research in an article in Al Jazeera, titled “How British colonialism killed 100 million Indians in 40 years.”
They explained:
According to research by the economic historian Robert C Allen, extreme poverty in India increased under British rule, from 23 percent in 1810 to more than 50 percent in the mid-20th century. Real wages declined during the British colonial period, reaching a nadir in the 19th century, while famines became more frequent and more deadly. Far from benefitting the Indian people, colonialism was a human tragedy with few parallels in recorded history.
Experts agree that the period from 1880 to 1920 – the height of Britain’s imperial power – was particularly devastating for India. Comprehensive population censuses carried out by the colonial regime beginning in the 1880s reveal that the death rate increased considerably during this period, from 37.2 deaths per 1,000 people in the 1880s to 44.2 in the 1910s. Life expectancy declined from 26.7 years to 21.9 years.
In a recent paper in the journal World Development, we used census data to estimate the number of people killed by British imperial policies during these four brutal decades. Robust data on mortality rates in India only exists from the 1880s. If we use this as the baseline for “normal” mortality, we find that some 50 million excess deaths occurred under the aegis of British colonialism during the period from 1891 to 1920.
Fifty million deaths is a staggering figure, and yet this is a conservative estimate. Data on real wages indicates that by 1880, living standards in colonial India had already declined dramatically from their previous levels. Allen and other scholars argue that prior to colonialism, Indian living standards may have been “on a par with the developing parts of Western Europe.” We do not know for sure what India’s pre-colonial mortality rate was, but if we assume it was similar to that of England in the 16th and 17th centuries (27.18 deaths per 1,000 people), we find that 165 million excess deaths occurred in India during the period from 1881 to 1920.
While the precise number of deaths is sensitive to the assumptions we make about baseline mortality, it is clear that somewhere in the vicinity of 100 million people died prematurely at the height of British colonialism. This is among the largest policy-induced mortality crises in human history. It is larger than the combined number of deaths that occurred during all famines in the Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and Mengistu’s Ethiopia.
"This is among the largest policy-induced mortality crises in human history. It is larger than the combined number of deaths that occurred during all famines in the Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and Mengistu’s Ethiopia." https://t.co/eTGQzRkTyn
— Dr. Prerna Bakshi (@bprerna) December 4, 2022

This staggering figure does not include the tens of millions more Indians who died in human-made famines that were caused by the British empire.
In the notorious Bengal famine in 1943, an estimated 3 million Indians starved to death, while the British government exported food and banned grain imports.
Academic studies by scientists found that the 1943 Bengal famine was not a result of natural causes; it was the product of the policies of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
The Bengal famine of 1943 killed 2-3 million people, when Bengal was part of British-ruled India.
There was food — but Winston Churchill ordered it be exported and stockpiled in case Europe needed it as the war dragged on.https://t.co/rIs4vz1yWG pic.twitter.com/ue1H4gBkfZ
— Sasha Alyson ??? Karma Colonialism (@TrojanAid) September 2, 2021

Churchill himself was a notorious racist who stated, “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”
In the early 1930s, Churchill also admired Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and the Italian dictator who founded fascism, Benito Mussolini.
Churchill’s own scholarly supporters admitted that he “expressed admiration for Mussolini” and, “if forced to choose between Italian fascism and Italian communism, Churchill unhesitatingly would choose the former.”
Genocidal colonialist Churchill "expressed admiration for Mussolini"
Churchill's own hagiographers admitted, "if forced to choose between Italian fascism and Italian communism, Churchill unhesitatingly would choose the former"
In 1935, Churchill praised Hitler for his "courage" https://t.co/kTkoaaOW5g
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) September 29, 2022

Indian politician Shashi Tharoor, who served as an under-secretary general of the United Nations, has exhaustively documented the crimes of the British empire, particularly under Churchill.
“Churchill has as much blood on his hands as Hitler does,” Tharoor stressed. He pointed to “the decisions that he [Churchill] personally signed off during the Bengal famine, when 4.3 million people died because of the decisions he took or endorsed.”
Award-winning Indian economist Utsa Patnaik has estimated that the British empire drained $45 trillion of wealth from the Indian subcontinent.
"Over roughly 200 years, the East India Company and the British Raj siphoned out at least £9.2 trillion (or $44.6 trillion)… To put that sum in context, Britain’s 2018 GDP estimate is about $3 trillion" https://t.co/1iyV3oXrjJ
— AnnieZaidi (@anniezaidi) November 19, 2018

In a 2018 interview with the Indian news website Mint, she explained:
Between 1765 and 1938, the drain amounted to £9.2 trillion (equal to $45 trillion), taking India’s export surplus earnings as the measure, and compounding it at a 5% rate of interest. Indians were never credited with their own gold and forex earnings. Instead, the local producers here were ‘paid’ the rupee equivalent out of the budget—something you’d never find in any independent country. The ‘drain’ varied between 26-36% of the central government budget. It would obviously have made an enormous difference if India’s huge international earnings had been retained within the country. India would have been far more developed, with much better health and social welfare indicators. There was virtually no increase in per capita income between 1900 and 1946, even though India registered the second largest export surplus earnings in the world for three decades before 1929.
Since all the earnings were taken by Britain, such stagnation is not surprising. Ordinary people died like flies owing to under-nutrition and disease. It is shocking that Indian expectation of life at birth was just 22 years in 1911. The most telling index, however, is food grain availability. Because the purchasing power of ordinary Indians was being squeezed by high taxes, the per capita annual consumption of food grains went down from 200kg in 1900 to 157kg on the eve of World War II, and further plummeted to 137kg by 1946. No country in the world today, not even the least developed, is anywhere near the position India was in 1946.
Patnaik emphasized:
The modern capitalist world would not exist without colonialism and the drain. During Britain’s industrial transition, 1780 to 1820, the drain from Asia and the West Indies combined was about 6 percent of Britain’s GDP, nearly the same as its own savings rate. After the mid-19th century, Britain was running current account deficits with Continental Europe and North America, and at the same time, it was investing massively in these regions, which meant running capital account deficits too. The two deficits summed to large and rising balance of payments (BoP) deficits with these regions.
How was it possible for Britain to export so much capital—which went into building railways, roads and factories in the U.S. and continental Europe? Its BoP deficits with these regions were being settled by appropriating the financial gold and forex earned by the colonies, especially India. Every unusual expense like war was also put on the Indian budget, and whatever India was not able to meet through its annual exchange earnings was shown as its indebtedness, on which interest accumulated.


Instruction: Write an article about: Brazilian neo-Nazis see Ukraine as their model: Behind the fascist campaign to ‘Ukrainize’ Brazil. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Azov, Brazil, fascism, Jair Bolsonaro, Nazis, Russia, Ukraine

Output:
Brazilian neo-Nazis and supporters of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro have spent years collaborating with violent fascists in Ukraine, and even launched a campaign to “Ukrainize” Brazil.

(This article was first published at MintPress News, under a Creative Commons license.)
SÃO PAULO – A small group of supporters of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro became social media celebrities after they crossed the border into Ukraine this February and March to fight against Russia.
These right-wing Brazilians posed with assault rifles on Instagram, reciting prayers to the special forces, sharing video monologues praising the brotherhood of people from around the world who had gathered in a training base near the Ukrainian city of Lviv to kill Russian “communists.” The group’s inexperience was demonstrated by the fact that most of their social media posts included their geo-location information.
This all changed following a missile attack on the training base near the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on March 13, after which a series of more humble photos and videos began cropping up on their Twitter and Instagram feeds.
From across the Polish border, Bolsonaro supporter Jefferson Kleidian posted a selfie brandishing an injured pinky finger and thanking God for one more day on Earth.
Brazilian Bolsonaro supporter and former combatant Jefferson Kleidian thanks God for one more day on Earth from a safe place in Poland
Another right-wing influencer, Andre Hack, posted that he had lost friends at the base. 28-year-old shooting-range instructor and Bolsonaro fanatic Tiago Rossi tweeted a video saying he had fled the base immediately before the missile strike.
“Our entire legion was destroyed, the information I have is that everyone died. You don’t understand what it’s like to have a fighter jet fire a missile at you. I didn’t think it was a real war,” Rossi said.
"You guys don't understand what it's like to have a jet shoot a missile at you."So war isn't a movie or a video game.Brazilian describes what happened when Russians missiles hit the base where the foreign legion was deployed.Thanks to @BrianMteleSUR for translation. https://t.co/1HFcXi6zby pic.twitter.com/DZRPDQmiDP
— Margaret Kimberley (@freedomrideblog) March 14, 2022

What were these Brazilians doing in Ukraine in the first place? In order to answer that question, one has to look back at the resurgence of Nazi ideology in Brazil and the deepening relationship between Brazil’s neo-Nazi groups, which have grown by a staggering 270% since Jair Bolsonaro took office in 2019, and Ukrainian neo-Nazi organizations like Azov.
During the 1930s, Brazil was home to the largest German Nazi party outside of Europe and had a much larger local fascist movement, called the integralistas, that tried to enact a coup in 1938. The coup was crushed, but the ideology lived on in a country that already suffered from severe structural racism as the last place in the Americas to eradicate slavery.
Brazil’s current president, Jair Bolsonaro, made it into power only after a joint operation by the US Department of Justice and Brazilian public prosecutors to jail the leading 2018 presidential candidate, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on false charges.
Bolsonaro began his career as an army captain during a sub-fascist military dictatorship, which employed Gestapo tactics like death squads and torture against labor union leaders, intellectuals, and communists.
As a congressman in 2004, Bolsonaro wrote a series of letters to neo-Nazi websites, saying things like “you guys are the reason I am in politics.”
Grounded on a platform of anti-communist hate speech, his presidency unleashed a flood of public support for fascism, which had been latent since the end of the dictatorship.
According to Brazilian law, Nazi organizations are illegal, but according to anthropology professor and anti-Nazi researcher Adriana Dias, there are currently 530 neo-Nazi cells operating in Brazil.
Since 2012, these organizations have had increasing interactions with Ukrainian Nazi organizations, which have resulted in Brazilian Nazis gaining combat experience with Azov in Donbas.
This has also led to a campaign to “Ukraine Brazil,” run by a right-wing extremist faction of Bolsonaro supporters.
Sara Fernanda Giromini was a teenager involved in Nazi skinhead gangs in Sao Paulo when she opened a VK account, made friends with Russian and Ukrainian neo-Nazis, and learned about FEMEN, after reading about it on Facebook. VK is a popular Russian social media platform.
Giromini first visited Ukraine in 2011, where she met and trained with FEMEN leaders and other actors from the Ukrainian far-right. After returning to Brazil in 2012, she started calling herself Sarah Winter in homage to the English fascist of the 1920s.
A series of topless protests transformed Giromini into a celebrity, but FEMEN Brazil imploded in less than a year.
Bruna Themis, number two in the organization, resigned and gave a series of whistleblowing interviews, saying that the Ukrainians demanded they kick out any Brazilian woman who didn’t meet their sexist physical appearance and weight standards; that the real leader of the group was a minor far-right politician named Andrey Cuia, who frequently traveled back and forth to Ukraine; and that Cuia and Giromini were ripping off donors and keeping the money for themselves.
After posing with guns and threatening violence against Supreme Court ministers, Brazilian fascist “Sara Winter (Sara Giromini) was put under house arrest
Shortly afterward, FEMEN Ukraine announced that FEMEN Brazil had nothing to do with them, despite the fact that Giromini was arrested during a FEMEN protest in Kiev in 2012. Giromini now says that during her time in FEMEN, they paid her $2,000 per protest.
According to Adriana Dias, the anti-Nazi researcher, after FEMEN folded, Giromini began inviting Ukrainian neo-Nazis to Brazil. She remains friends with several leaders of Azov and the Phoenix Battalion on her VK account to this day.
In 2016, civil police in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, home to several waves of German and Italian immigration and a long fascist tradition of its own, carried out an investigation into neo-Nazi groups that were planning violent attacks against Afro-Brazilians, Jews, and LGBT+ people.
They discovered that a Ukrainian neo-Nazi militia, Misanthropic Division, was recruiting Brazilian Nazis in seven cities in the state to serve as volunteer combatants with Azov in the Donbas region.
The investigation, which was dubbed “Operation Azov,” received ample coverage in the Brazilian and Israeli press at the time.
After leading candidate Lula da Silva was arbitrarily imprisoned during the 2018 election campaign, Bolsonaro was swept into office on a wave of Nazi-influenced anti-communist propaganda that led him to label any person or organization that ever criticized him as a communist. At one point he even called the oldest conservative magazine in the world, The Economist, “The Communist.”
Giromini, by this time a vocal member of the anti-abortion movement, campaigned heavily for Bolsonaro. After he took office in 2019, she began a public call to “Ukrainize Brazil.”
Many of the most reactionary public figures associated with Bolsonaro, like openly fascist Rio de Janeiro lawmaker Daniel Silveira, joined the campaign.
Dias says, “Azov’s tactic has always been to bring a group of 300 people to a city and, through training activities with locals, start a right-wing extremist movement.”
Giromini relocated to the capital Brasilia and started an organization called the “Group of 300” to help build support for the Ukrainization of Brazil.
In 2020, after the Brazilian Supreme Court blocked one of Bolsonaro’s attempts to bypass the constitution, Giromini’s Group of 300 camped out on the national esplanade, held a series of tiki torch-wielding protests in front of the court building, and shot fireworks at it.
Posing for selfies with guns, Giromini called for violence against Supreme Court ministers. On July 15, 2020, the Supreme Court ordered her arrest. After two weeks in jail, she was given an ankle bracelet, transferred to house arrest, and ordered to stay off social media. She has been there ever since.
Brazilian fascist Sara Winter (Sara Giromini) leading a “Group of 300” protest in front of the Supreme Court
Sara Giromini AKA Winter, leading a protest in front of the Supreme Court
Meanwhile, Ukrainian flags and symbols of the Ukrainian far-right became more and more popular at pro-Bolsonaro rallies.
In 2020, a former soldier and security consultant named Alex Silva, who has been living in Kiev since 2014 and says he is a member of an “auxiliary volunteer police force” there, triggered a media controversy that led to an official disclaimer from the Ukrainian Embassy when he hoisted a red-and-black Right Sector flag onto a sound truck at a Bolsonaro rally and was photographed walking through the crowd wearing it like a cape.
Silva, now back in Kiev, has become another internet celebrity to the Brazilian far-right, posting videos of his armed voluntary patrols of Kiev as recently as this March.
Far-right Brazilian influencer Alex Silva, a former soldier and “voluntary auxiliary policeman” in Kiev, draped in a Right Sector flag at a 2020 protest in Sao Paulo
Leonel Radde is a Porto Alegre city councilor who spends a lot of his time investigating neo-Nazi groups in Rio Grande do Sul. Asked about connections between Brazilian and Ukrainian neo-Nazi groups, he said:
We see clearly that the majority of Nazi groups here use Ukrainian design elements. They are using the same symbols – mainly the black sun — and they all use this discourse of Ukrainizing Brazil. They also talk among themselves about adapting Ukrainian tactics for setting up camps and occupying public squares and things like that. They are definitely trying to copy what happened in Ukraine in 2014. We are trying to figure out how much they are just copying things they see on the internet or if they are being financed from the Ukraine, although Sarah Winter spent time near Porto Alegre doing organizing work and she started this whole thing.”
Meanwhile, far-right social media influencers like Alex Silva are still sending reports from Ukraine.
This March the Ukrainian Embassy in Brasilia said it received 100 requests from Brazilians asking to volunteer for the Ukrainian army, and UOL reports that analysis of pro-Bolsonaro social media groups shows that 500 others are planning to go.
Whether the missile attack near Lviv and reports coming in from scared-looking former Brazilian combatants who have escaped to Poland will change any of that has yet to be seen.
Regardless, it is clear that political indoctrination by Ukrainian Nazis has taken hold among Brazil’s growing far-right, and will be a factor in the 2022 presidential election season.


Instruction: Write an article about: Ukraine is burning left-wing books as Russian military advances. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Azov, Nazis, Russia, Ukraine

Output:
Ukrainian fighters are filling tires with left-wing Soviet-era books and burning them in the streets of the capital Kiev as Russian troops advance.

(Se puede leer este artículo en español aquí.)
Ukrainian fighters are burning left-wing books in the capital Kiev, as Russian troops advance.
The chief foreign correspondent for NBC News, Richard Engel, is reporting inside Ukraine, after Russia invaded the country on February 24.
Engel does not hide his bias; he is extremely supportive of the Ukrainian government and its Western-backed forces, and has helped spread propaganda from the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion.
But even Engel has had to sometimes acknowledge the grim reality on the ground in Ukraine.
On March 7, the NBC correspondent tweeted a photo of tires full of books, on a street in Kiev. He said many of the texts were “about communism and political theory in the USSR.”
A local commander told Engel that the Ukrainian militants were planning on setting fire to the books and tires as Russian soldiers move on the capital.
The Ukrainian commander said, “We don’t need them.”
Checkpoint in kyiv stuffed with Soviet-era books. Many about communism and political theory in the USSR. A local commander said they’ll be used to light the tires on fire as Russians advance. “We don’t need them,” he said. pic.twitter.com/H1KxektzYJ
— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) March 7, 2022

Ukraine has a systematic problem with Nazi infiltration of the government.
Far-right neo-fascist groups played a key role in a violent US-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014.
After the putsch, neo-Nazi militias like the Azov Battalion were directly incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard.
These Ukrainian neo-Nazis have been supported by Western governments, including the United States and Canada.
In the back of this photo, you can also see a Canadian officer, alongside US military officers, meeting with Ukraine's neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which uses Nazi-era symbols.https://t.co/8tOZ9A7YGK pic.twitter.com/dAZBeFaHdU
— Benjamin Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 16, 2018


Instruction: Write an article about: German lawmaker denounces Ukraine ‘proxy war’ and US ‘terrorist attack’ on Nord Stream pipelines. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Annalena Baerbock, Antony Blinken, Boris Pistorius, energy, EU, Europe, European Union, gas, Germany, Global South, Joe Biden, Mark Milley, Munich Security Conference, oil, Olaf Scholz, Russia, Sahra Wagenknecht, sanctions, Sevim Dagdelen, Ukraine

Output:
In this interview, German Member of Parliament Sevim Dağdelen, of the Left Party, Die Linke, condemned the NATO “proxy war” in Ukraine, saying EU members are acting as US “vassal states”.  She also denounced the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines as a “terrorist attack”.

Geopolitical Economy Report editor Ben Norton interviewed German Member of Parliament Sevim Dağdelen, of Die Linke, the Left Party.
She condemned the conflict in Ukraine as a NATO “proxy war” against Russia, warning that the leaders of the European Union are acting as Washington’s “vassals”.
“A massive shift is taking place in favor of the United States, which is attacking Europe as a center of industry, with its multi-billion-dollar program of industrial subsidies”, Dağdelen explained.
“So we need Germany actually to be emancipated at last and Europe finally to assert itself, ending the nonsensical economic war, and launching a European diplomatic initiative to end the war in Ukraine”, the German lawmaker urged.
Referencing a report by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh that the United States and NATO member Norway destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines, Dağdelen lamented, “The German government’s refusal to get to the bottom of the terrorist attacks on the German-Russian Nord Stream pipelines is the highlight so far of Germany’s vassalage to the United States”.

INTRODUCTION: Hi, everyone. I’m Ben Norton, and this is Geopolitical Economy Report. I had the pleasure of doing an interview with one of the few politicians in Europe who is publicly speaking out against the war in Ukraine and calling for peace talks to end the conflict, instead of fueling it further with arms shipments.
Her name is Sevim Dağdelen. She has been a member of the German parliament, the Bundestag, since 2005, and she is a leader of the Die Linke party, the Left Party. She is part of the Bundestag’s committee on foreign affairs, a deputy member of the defense committee, and spokeswoman for international policy and disarmament.
In our discussion, she criticized the policy of the current German government and the European Union. She said that they’re acting as “vassals” of the United States. And she called for Europe to have an independent foreign policy. She called for peace talks to end this war, instead of fueling it with more arms shipments.
She also criticized the United States for, according to a report by journalist Seymour Hersh, destroying the Nord Stream pipelines. She referred to this as an act of “terrorism” against German civilian infrastructure. And she said that Germany is committing economic “suicide” on behalf of the United States.
Sevim represents one of the few politicians in Europe who is calling for Europe to reconsider its foreign policy, to be independent, and calling for peace instead of more war. So this is my interview with Sevim Dağdelen.
BEN NORTON: Thank you, Sevim. It’s a real pleasure.
At the Council of Europe in January, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock declared, “We are fighting a war against Russia”. She called for Europe to unite, and she said, “We can fight this war only together”.
“We are fighting a war against Russia”, Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told the Council of Europe.
“We can fight this war only together” she said, calling to send tanks and more weapons to Ukraine, to escalate the NATO proxy war.
More here: https://t.co/TBa3bNmhAk pic.twitter.com/NJWzybl5Qo
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 26, 2023

Now, this may be a surprise to the German people. There was never a vote in Germany to declare war on Russia.
What do the people in Germany think about this fact that the German government has said it is at war with Russia? Do the German people want war with Russia?
SEVIM DAĞDELEN: Well, first of all, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock’s statement has once again confirmed what over the past year has become increasingly obvious. The war in Ukraine is a proxy war between NATO and the West and Russia.
This is clear from the massive military, intelligence, and financial support for Ukraine from the West, through which the NATO states are making themselves de facto conflict parties, as well as the unprecedented economic war against Russia.
Even the NATO general secretary, Jens Stoltenberg, has repeatedly and publicly stated that NATO’s fate depends on Ukraine’s victory.
So a few days ago, at the Munich Security Conference, Stoltenberg moreover said that the war had started not in February last year, but in 2014, and that the NATO allies had been providing military support to Ukraine with training and equipment since then, since 2014.
These are, of course, very serious confessions by the NATO secretary general. And they sound, with the admission of the breach of international law by former federal German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the former French President Francois Hollande, about only having concluded the Minsk agreement to gain time to arm Ukraine.
So, without thereby legitimizing Russia’s attack, of course, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we must nevertheless note that NATO and especially the United States, share some of the blame for this war.
Furthermore, with its war aim of militarily defeating Russia, and its blocking of negotiations, the West is also making itself partly responsible for extending the war.
You asked about the people and the population in Germany. In contradiction to the interests of the German population, the German government, as the statement of Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has illustrated, is completely bowing down to the West’s strategy of betting on a military victory, which I believe is unrealistic and extremely dangerous.
It’s unrealistic because a nuclear-armed Russia will hardly be prepared to unconditionally give up in a conflict it is engaged in, from its point of view, to protect its very existence – because Russia always said it’s an existential question for them, the question of Ukraine and its membership in NATO.
And it’s dangerous because, every passing day and every additional weapon delivery, increases the risk of the conflict expanding into a third world war.
As you can remember, last year, in November, the missile incident in Poland gave us an insight into the danger, when Ukraine’s President Zelensky tried, despite knowing better from the intelligence from the NATO states, to declare NATO’s state of defense, and thereby potentially risk his way into a third world war.
So, not without reasons, surveys suggest that around three-in-four people in Germany are afraid of the war in Ukraine spreading and having a massive escalation potential.
The majority in parliament, the German parliament, the German Bundestag, completely ignores this. So the governing parties of the Social Democrats, the Liberals, and the Greens, together with the conservative party, the Christian Democratic Party, and the right-wingers, they vote for every new arm delivery to Ukraine.
And now the leading neo-Nazi organization, Third Way, Der Dritte Weg, for example, is also in favor of arms deliveries, and stands closely alongside the Azov Battalion and is in favor of the delivery of the battle tanks, Leopard 2, for example. So the German fascists even deliver goods themselves to the Ukrainian fascist allies.
But nevertheless, we have to say, a majority in Germany, want the West, the Western community, to launch negotiations on bringing the war to an end.
BEN NORTON: Why do you think Germany and the European Union leadership are so invested in this war?
In the case of Germany, Russia had been the largest supplier of both oil and gas to Germany. And we’ve seen major economic consequences in Europe. We’ve seen large rates of inflation, extremely high energy costs.
And this is fueling deindustrialization. We see German companies are leaving and going to the United States and other countries. This is causing unemployment and economic difficulties.

We see that even Britain’s economy is expected to shrink this year; it’s going to be in a recession.
So why is Europe so invested in this war?
SEVIM DAĞDELEN: Well, the European Union, and first and foremost the German government, as you said Ben, acts as an obedient vassal to the U.S. administration.
So this applies to the time following the end of the Cold War, when we failed to build a security order in Europe that would include Russia. Instead, Germany went along with the U.S.-led NATO policy of expansion and confrontation, allowed the United States to drive a wedge between Russia and Europe.
The German government’s inability to pursue its own interests is clearly also being demonstrated today by its participation in the West’s suicidal economic war against Russia.
I mean, the German government actions are, you know, from your perspective, it must be utterly absurd how the German government is acting at the moment. And for the most of the population in Germany and Europe as well.
So the sanctions are failing in their purpose of hampering Russia’s military operation. And this is something the German government has confirmed, in a very formal, official reply to my parliamentary question.
And at any rate, the Russian economy is taking the hit of the sanctions better than expected, and will, in the assessment of the International Monetary Fund, IMF, grow more this year than Germany’s.
So while we now depend on enormously expensive supplies of fracking gas from the United States, the high energy prices are pushing many sectors of German industry to the brink of collapse.
The workers are footing the bill, suffering their greatest loss in real earnings – it’s about 5%, 4.7% in 2022 – since the Second World War, since 1945.
And anyone who has accumulated savings has lost about 10% of their value, due to inflation in Germany.
So if we can take the sound defense of one’s own population as a measure of political intelligence, then we in Germany have the most stupid, the dumbest government, for it is consciously harming the interests of its own population and accepting the downfall of the German economy, as the price of – well, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stated the objective, she said: ruining Russia. That is what she wants, as the price for that.
And within the Western alliance, too, a massive shift is taking place in favor of the United States, which is attacking Europe as a center of industry, with its multi-billion-dollar program of industrial subsidies, like the Inflation Reduction Act, by the U.S. administration.
So we need Germany actually to be emancipated at last and Europe finally to assert itself, ending the nonsensical economic war, and launching a European diplomatic initiative to end the war in Ukraine.
This would be the start to emancipate themselves from the U.S. administration, and not being a vassel state of the United States anymore.
BEN NORTON: And what happened with the European left? You, Sevim, are from Die Linke, the Left Party, in Germany. You’re a leader of the left in Germany. And you and some of your colleagues have been very outspoken against the war.
But across the European left, we do see very few voices willing to challenge this war. Maybe in France, there is Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and Jeremy Corbyn in Britain.
Why are so many kind of center-left parties in Europe, like the SPD, which is currently in power in Berlin, why are they supporting war?
Historically, the left has supported peace.
Do you think this is a moment similar to 1914, at the breakout of World War One, where the left was divided and there were parts of the left that supported the war?
SEVIM DAĞDELEN: Well, to some degree, yes, Ben. One cannot avoid getting the impression, at least what was the approval of war credits in the First World War is today the approval of the delivery of arms, battle tanks, and everything else as weapon deliveries.
So also, as far as the justification of ever greater participation in the war is concerned, 100 years only seem like a day, sometimes.
What was then the alleged “defense of war against the barbarism of the Russian czar” is today the “victory over the oligarch capitalist system of the Russian President Vladimir Putin”.
And this is a little bit funny because the oligarch system is not a genius Russian system. I mean, we do have oligarchs in Ukraine. We do have an oligarchic capitalist system in the United States also.
But it is frightening to see how well this war propaganda is working.
In 1914, even parts of the left wing of social democracy had campaigned for the World War, since it was supposedly against a “despot”, like the Russian czar.
And in 2023, even parts of the left and the Left Party are calling for the delivery of German battle tanks, and openly risking German participation in the war, attracted by the argument that Ukraine is about a war against an “autocracy”, an “authoritarian regime” like in Russia.
But it seems that parts of the left have forgotten to take into account the geopolitical realities.
I mean, even the the Joint Chief of Staff chairman, General Mark Milley in the United States, the highest ranking officer of the U.S. military, has repeatedly pointed out, most recently at the NATO meeting in Ramstein in January, that military victory is extremely unlikely for either side, in Ukraine.
So he warns of a war of attrition, claiming many casualties that will end up giving way to a diplomatic agreement anyway.
And since Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, more than 200,000 soldiers and 50,000 civilians have died. Millions of people had to flee.
Populations in both the West and the Global South are suffering, massively, from the effects of the war and Western economic sanctions, with high, skyrocketing prices, food prices, energy prices.
And so the West’s strategy of sending more and heavier arms and weaponry to Ukraine will not end the war, but rather bears the risk of further escalation, even nuclear escalation with Russia.
So the historical task of the left and the peace movement in Europe, as well as in the United States, is to counter this war propaganda.
So we need to make it clear: the only way to end this war, and to prevent a possible escalation up to a third world war, will be through negotiations. And there have to be negotiations, without preconditions, for a ceasefire now.
BEN NORTON: At the Munich Security Conference this February, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock insisted that, in this proxy war in Ukraine, “Neutrality is not an option“.
And then US Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed her comments, and he said that you “can’t be neutral”, and “there is no neutral position”.
Clearly those comments were directed at the Global South. The vast majority of the global population is in the Global South, in countries that have been neutral.
Countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia
87% of the global population lives in countries that have not imposed sanctions on Russia over the war in Ukraine.
So what is your response to Baerbock’s insistence that neutrality is not possible?
SEVIM DAĞDELEN: Well, the reality shows that she’s wrong. Since the beginning of the war, the West has been trying to enlist these countries’ support to isolate and weaken Russia, in order to preserve its absolute global predominance, led by the United States.
But this strategy has failed completely, as the numbers you mentioned demonstrate. On the contrary, large countries like China and India are currently intensifying their economic relations with Russia. And the West is further isolating itself and losing its credibility even more.
So the failure to make Russia a pariah state shows the limits of the Western drive for hegemony in an increasingly multipolar world.
So it makes perfect sense that the countries of the Global South do not want to be dragged onto the side of the West in the proxy war in Ukraine.
And this is my personal experience as well. I mean, in the last year, I’ve been in many countries in the Global South, especially in Africa, but also in Asia.
And most counterparts, they told me, “We are trying to survive. We do not want to be on one side. We we want to survive here, in this situation. We are also affected by the sanctions of the West”.
So they they clearly see the invasion was started by Russians. But the reaction of the West to this invasion, through the energy sanctions, they are affecting the Global South, not the invasion by the Russians. This was not affecting them.
But the sanctions, the energy sanctions through the Western countries like the United States and the European Union, they are affecting them, and they are causing these skyrocketing prices in energy and food.
So this is the reason why they say, “We want to survive. We have our own battles. And we do not want to be in the middle of this war of the West versus Russia”.
And, understandably, they point to the West’s double standards policy as well, and the innumerable illegal wars of aggression waged by the U.S. and its allies, which did not lead to similar responses.
So, they always say, “We don’t forget the invasion of Iraq. We don’t forget the invasion of Libya. We don’t forget the invasion of Afghanistan, and all the crimes done by the Western countries, with no response at all, and no responsibilities taken by these countries”.
So the West is totally ignoring the Global South’s interest in a swift end to the war by diplomatic negotiations.
And on the contrary, with its economic war against Russia, the West is holding the countries of the Global South hostage, since they are suffering because of the rising food and energy prices, the spread of hunger and poverty.
This is another reason why the Global South actually wants to end this war through negotiations as soon as possible, because they are suffering over this, and having more poverty and more hunger in the countries of the Global South.
Also, in view of the fatal effects of a prolonged war on the Global South, it must be ended immediately through diplomacy, they say.
For example, the initiative of the new president, the re-elected president in Brazil, President Lula, or the recently announced initiative of China, they are supporting these initiatives.
And I think it’s a very good initiative, which has to be supported by the West itself.
But I think they can only be successful if the West also supports a diplomatic solution, rather than pursuing its war goal of winning against Russia.
And in this respect, I can absolutely understand the stance and the position of the majority of the Global South.
BEN NORTON: The Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh, one of the most renowned investigative journalists in the world, reported that the United States destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines, with the help of NATO member Norway.
And we should keep in mind that the Nord Stream pipelines were not simply a Russian project; there was significant investment by German companies, also French companies, and other European companies.
You yourself, Sevim, raised this issue in the German parliament, the Bundestag.

Why is there no outrage in Berlin and Brussels over this attack?
What does this say about the fact that the United States is willing to attack the critical infrastructure of a country that it considers its “ally”?
SEVIM DAĞDELEN: Well, as you said, Ben, it’s very shocking how little attention the German public paid to the revelations of the deserving U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.
And one has to imagine this for a moment. This is a terrorist attack on German and European energy security, presumably committed by NATO allies, the United States of America and Norway. And this should have resulted in a huge outcry.
In my opinion, the German government’s refusal to get to the bottom of the terrorist attacks on the German-Russian Nord Stream pipelines is the highlight so far of Germany’s vassalage to the United States. It’s nothing else.
So until today, the German government has been stonewalling and refusing to keep even parliament and parliamentarians informed on the investigations.
Instead of leaving no stone unturned in the investigation of a terrorist attack apparently carried out by the United States and Norway, its allies within NATO, the federal government stays very silent about the accusation, and carries on with business as usual.
So the same applies to the German media. Instead of taking the revelations of such a well known investigative journalist, a journalist legend, as an opportunity to do their own research and to put pressure on the German government to finally clarify the terrorist attacks, they are either ignoring or trying to defame and delegitimize the journalist Seymour Hersh.
So most of them are not even interested in finding out who is behind the terrorist attack and who is not.
So the fact that the United States involvement is ruled out from the outset is absurd, if only since President Biden announced in February 2022, in a common press conference with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, that Nord Stream will be terminated in the event of a Russian invasion, even against Germany’s as well.
So we are currently experiencing a collective cognitive dissonance in the German public.
This also applies to the whole issue of peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.
For example, as Israel’s former Prime Minister Bennett has confirmed, Boris Johnson and the United States prevented the peace talks last spring in 2022.
So in the mistaken belief that they could win a military victory over Russia, they swept a de facto, finished negotiation result off the table.
But German media is almost not covering this. They are ignoring this as well.
And I remember how my friend, the journalist Julian Assange, who is facing up to 175 years in prison in the U.S. only for publishing the truth about U.S. war crimes, once said, “If wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by truth”. And I do believe he is right in this.
Tat’s why I’m very much fighting for the truth.
BEN NORTON: Well, to end on a slightly more optimistic note, we do see a growing peace movement in Germany and Europe, led by you and some of your colleagues.
A fellow member of the Die Linke, Left Party, Sahra Wagenknecht, created a petition that has around 600,000 signatures demanding that the German government stop sending weapons to Ukraine and instead push for peace negotiations to end this war.
Großartig: Eine halbe Million Unterschriften für das #ManifestfuerFrieden nach einer Woche!  Herzlichen Dank & gerne weiter verbreiten: https://t.co/uC3H0FBZix Und kommt zur #Friedenskundgebung am 25.02. um 14 Uhr vor dem Brandenburger Tor in Berlin! https://t.co/2jxKTNGNpH pic.twitter.com/WWXWoV9NlD
— Sahra Wagenknecht (@SWagenknecht) February 18, 2023

How do you think the people of Europe can bring about an end to this conflict? And how do you see a peaceful resolution coming about?
SEVIM DAĞDELEN: Well, we have to say it’s about three 600,000 signatures within about a week. So it’s a very huge support for the Manifesto for Peace, which was initiated by my colleague, Sahra Wagenknecht, and initially signed by 69 intellectuals and respected public figures.
This support is proof of the growing support for ending the war through negotiations. So in Germany, there is a vast difference between public and published opinion.
Large sections of the mainstream media have given themselves over to entirely uncritical and US compliant war propaganda, and in politics and in the media, the tone is set by hawks, who in their mania demand ever more weapons and more heavy weapon deliveries, and horrifically defame anyone who calls for diplomacy and negotiation.
And the huge support for this petition, as well as for the protest against the [Munich] Security Conference last weekend, where I spoke at the rally, at a big rally against the Munich Security Conference, are hopeful signs, and emblematic of the fact that large swaths of the public no longer want to be part of what the war-obsessed ruling elite are doing.
And despite its hesitation and a certain rhetorical restraint in the case of the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, the German government is de facto submitting to the U.S. its declared war goal of counting on a military victory for Ukraine against Russia.
So the new German defense minister, for example, Boris Pistorius, has now, in Munich at the Munich Security Conference, even stated quite openly at the conference that he also shares the line of the United States for the goal of counting on a military victory for Ukraine against Russia.
And I really share the assessment of U.S. General Chief of Staff Mark Milley and, for example, the very conservative RAND Corporation, that this strategy is very unrealistic and dangerous, as it would imply, to protect it, a costly war of attrition, and would carry the real danger of an expansion of the war to the point of nuclear escalation.
So I think the Chinese announcement at the Munich Security Conference that it wants to advocate a peace initiative is very important.
Those who like the German Minister of Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock make a complete withdrawal of Russian troops a condition obviously have no interest in ending the war, because this is not a serious condition, because it’s very unrealistic.
A quick ceasefire must have top priority now. And this requires negotiations without precondition.
Therefore, on the one year anniversary of the dreadful war, a broad coalition in Germany is mobilizing really big protests in Berlin on the 25th of February. But all over Germany on the 24th and 25th, there will be protests going on, and we will be calling for the German government to finally take the public’s desire for diplomacy rather than escalation seriously.
And I think not only in Germany. So as far as I know, in London, in many countries in Europe, in the capital cities, and even in the United States, in March, there will be on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, there will be a big demonstration as well.
I think we do need a coordination and networking of freedom- and peace-loving people worldwide.
My impression – not only my impression, it’s my observation as well, and experience – the warmongers in trans-Atlantic relations, in trans-Atlantic think tanks like the Atlantic Council, the Atlantic Bridge, and some others, they are very much and very, very strongly bonded and are in networks, and we do need an alternative to them.
We do left trans-Atlanticism, with the peace-loving people in the United States, together with the peace-loving people in Europe, to show an alternative to the relation between the U.S. administration and the German government, which is a relation which is not founded on respect and cooperation, which has a disbalance, where you have hegemony like the United States, and vessel states, like the German government.
So we do need an alternative to this, and we have to work on this alternative together, as peace- and freedom-loving people.
BEN NORTON: Sevim Dağdelen is a member of the German parliament, the Bundestag. She has been since 2005. She is a member of the parliamentary group of the Left Party, Die Linke, a deputy member of the defense committee, and a spokeswoman for international policy and disarmament.
Sevim, thank you so much for joining us today.
SEVIM DAĞDELEN: Thanks for having me, Ben. It was a pleasure.


Instruction: Write an article about: US now world’s top LNG exporter, as Europe boycotts cheaper Russian gas. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: energy, Europe, gas, LNG, Russia, Ukraine

Output:
The USA has rapidly become the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), tied with Qatar. Europe replaced Asia as the top market for US LNG in 2022, boycotting cheaper Russian energy over the proxy war in Ukraine.

The United States has rapidly become the world’s biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), tied with Qatar.
A significant reason for this meteoric increase is because Europe replaced Asia as the top market for US LNG in 2022, as Brussels pledged to boycott Russian energy over the proxy war in Ukraine.

Among the principal importers of US LNG are France, Spain, Britain, the Netherlands, and Italy.
Europe is now paying significantly more for expensive US LNG than it had previously for Russian pipeline gas.
As of 2022, Europe had the highest energy prices on the planet. This was a key factor in fueling an inflation crisis that spread worldwide, and hit Europe especially hard.
Bloomberg reported that the “US tied Qatar as the world’s top exporter of liquefied natural gas” in 2022, calling it “a milestone for the meteoric rise of America as a major supplier of the fuel.”
The outlet added that the United States, “which only began exporting LNG from the lower-48 states in 2016 and has seemingly overnight become a dominant force in the industry.”
A graph from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) illustrates the monumental shift in US LNG exports in just six years.

S&P Global reported in September 2022 that European imports of LNG made up the “lion’s share” of US exports in the first six months of 2022.
Global imports of US LNG nearly doubled from $10.8 billion in the first half of 2021 to $21.2 billion in same period in 2022.
“Many U.S. LNG export cargoes departed for Europe in the first half of 2022 as the war in Ukraine prompted a scramble for LNG supplies,” S&P Global wrote, adding that “LNG market experts have warned that shipments of LNG cannot quickly replace curtailed pipeline imports from Russia and that the region’s need for significant LNG volumes will remain strong.”
The market intelligence unit stressed that Europe has the highest gas prices on Earth. Its benchmark energy price hit a historic high of roughly €320 per megawatt hour in August.
S&P Global followed up with another report in November, stating that the “European energy crisis has put US natural gas in high demand and in a position of acute geopolitical relevance.”
The financial information firm used the same language, that the “lion’s share headed to Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February” and the escalation of the NATO-Russia proxy war.

The industry monitor LNGPrime reported that France, Spain, the Netherlands, Japan, and Italy bought nearly half (46.4%) of total US LNG exports in May 2022.
Reuters noted in December 2022 that US LNG prices had approximately doubled in the previous year. It added that US LNG exports to Europe increased by a staggering 137% in the first 11 months of 2022, compared to 2021.
The news wire added that “the United States will remain the primary supplier of LNG to Europe for at least 2023. This will likely generate even greater revenue for U.S exporters after a record 2022, which totaled $35 billion through September, compared to $8.3 billion over the same period in 2021.”
This massive spike in energy prices is causing economic chaos in Europe. Politico published an article in November 2022 titled “Why cheap US gas costs a fortune in Europe.”
It pointed out that US LNG is almost four times more expensive in Europe. And it is not just North American corporations that are profiting from this substantial markup, but also European importers and resellers.
Even France’s right-wing President Emmanuel Macron, a former investment banker, complained to French industrial executes, “In today’s geopolitical context, among countries that support Ukraine there are two categories being created in the gas market: those who are paying dearly and those who are selling at very high prices… The United States is a producer of cheap gas that they are selling us at a high price… I don’t think that’s friendly.”
Politico added, “Macron’s dig conveniently ignored that the largest European holder of long-term U.S. gas contracts is none other than France’s own TotalEnergies.”
In 2018, the CEO of Austrian fossil fuel company OMV estimated that Russian pipeline gas was 50% cheaper than US LNG. The corporate executive, Rainer Seele, said, “I think it is about 50% difference between LNG and Russian gas.”


Instruction: Write an article about: EEUU prometió terminar la guerra en Yemen, pero el bombardeo a civiles empeora. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Arabia Saudita, Joe Biden, Yemen

Output:
El presidente Biden afirmó que pondría fin a la guerra en Yemen, pero los bombardeos saudíes respaldados por EEUU se han intensificado. En promedio, cada hora un civil yemení es asesinado o herido. Es el nivel de víctimas más alto desde 2018.

(You can read this article in English here.)
El presidente de Estados Unidos, Joe Biden, afirmó repetidamente que pondría fin a la guerra en Yemen, que ha creado la mayor crisis humanitaria en la Tierra.
Pero en realidad, el bombardeo saudí respaldado por EEUU contra el país más pobre de Asia Occidental ha alcanzado el nivel más alto en varios años, bajo la supervisión de la administración Biden.
Los civiles yemeníes están pagando el precio, con un muerto o herido cada hora, según un análisis del grupo Save the Children.
La organización humanitaria dijo que enero de 2022 fue el mes más mortífero en Yemen desde 2018.
Del 6 de enero al 2 de febrero, más de 200 adultos y 15 niños fueron asesinados en Yemen. Otros 354 adultos y 30 niños resultaron heridos.
Save the Children reconoció que esta es sólo una estimación conservadora y es probable que la cifra real de víctimas sea mayor.
Oxfam informó que al menos 43 ataques aéreos saudíes respaldados por EEUU acertaron objetivos civiles en Yemen en enero de 2022.
“La mayoría de estos fueron en casas y granjas, destruyendo hogares y negocios que llevará muchos años reconstruir”, escribió la organización.
Casi un civil cada hora murió o resultó herido en enero en #Yemen, hecho que lo convierte en el mes más mortífero desde 2018. Esta nueva escalada está agravando la difícil situación de una población ya exhausta a pocas semanas de que se cumplen 7 años del inicio de la guerra. pic.twitter.com/zPocse0xgD
— Save the Children Es (@SaveChildrenEs) February 11, 2022

Marzo de 2022 marcará el séptimo aniversario de la guerra contra Yemen, librada por Arabia Saudita con el apoyo de Estados Unidos.
Durante su campaña presidencial de 2020, Joe Biden prometió que terminaría con este conflicto. Luego, en febrero de 2021, el presidente recién inaugurado afirmó que estaba terminando el apoyo de EEUU a las operaciones “ofensivas” saudíes en Yemen.
Biden no mencionó que la guerra es ofensiva por su propia naturaleza, dado que Riad la inició en marzo de 2015 lanzando una campaña de bombardeos contra su vecino del sur.
Es ampliamente reconocido que Arabia Saudita no podría librar esta guerra contra Yemen si no fuera por el apoyo militar, político y logístico que recibe de EEUU y Reino Unido, sin mencionar los muchos miles de millones de dólares en aviones, misiles, bombas y otras armas que estos dos países han vendido a la monarquía del Golfo.
Incluso los grupos de expertos centristas con sede en Washington, DC que están estrechamente vinculados al estado de seguridad nacional de EEUU, como la Institución Brookings, han hablado abiertamente de “la promesa incumplida de Biden sobre Yemen”.
La administración Biden ha seguido vendiendo tecnología militar a Arabia Saudita mientras asesina a civiles yemeníes.
En enero, Arabia Saudita atacó un centro de detención en Yemen con una bomba guiada por láser de la empresa norteamericana Raytheon, matando al menos a 91 personas e hiriendo a 236 más.
Arabia Saudita atacó un centro de detención en Yemen con una bomba fabricada por la empresa estadounidense Raytheon, matando a 91 personas e hiriendo a 236 más.
El presidente Joe Biden afirmó que terminaría al apoyo de EEUU a esta guerra, pero no lo hizo.https://t.co/VwZOUWdB91
— Multipolarista (@Multipolarista) January 31, 2022

Mientras tanto, las instituciones internacionales están haciendo poco o nada para tratar de detener el derramamiento de sangre en Yemen.
El Consejo Noruego para los Refugiados advirtió que el número de civiles muertos o heridos en Yemen casi se ha duplicado desde que el Consejo de Derechos Humanos de la ONU votó para poner fin a su seguimiento del conflicto en octubre de 2021.
“En los cuatro meses anteriores al final de la vigilancia de los derechos humanos, 823 civiles resultaron heridos o muertos en la guerra. En los cuatro meses que siguieron, fueron 1.535 civiles”, informó el consejo de refugiados, citando datos del Proyecto de Monitoreo de Impacto Civil.
En este período, el número de víctimas civiles causadas por los ataques aéreos saudíes se multiplicó por 39.
En lugar de presionar a su aliado Arabia Saudita para que ponga fin a la guerra, la administración Biden está considerando volver a las políticas de Donald Trump, golpeando al grupo de resistencia indígena yemení Ansarallah, conocido popularmente como los hutíes, con la designación de “terrorista”.


Instruction: Write an article about: Yemen suffers ‘largest humanitarian crisis in world’, UN warns repeatedly. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Saudi Arabia, United Nations, Yemen

Output:
Yemen is going through “one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises,” the United Nations has repeatedly warned, as Saudi Arabia bombs civilian areas with US support.

The United Nations under secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, Stephen O’Brien, once again reported that Yemen is going through the “largest humanitarian crisis in the world”, after two years of brutal US-backed Saudi war and blockade.
#Yemen: largest humanitarian crisis in the world, 2/3 of population – 18.8M people – need aid.
— Martin Griffiths (@UNReliefChief) March 10, 2017

O’Brien said at the UN Security Council on 10 January that aid is needed by 18.8 million people, more than two-thirds of Yemen’s population.
A staggering 7 million Yemenis are hungry and do not know where they will get their next meal — a figure that doubled since January.
The top UN official also warned the global community is “facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations”, at the end of World War II in 1945.
Yemen is going through “one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises,” the United Nations once again reiterated on January 9, through the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
“People’s access to food is rapidly worsening and urgent action is needed,” added Salah Hajj Hassan, the FAO representative in Yemen. That is to say, things are getting worse, not better.
In September, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) likewise warned, “The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is one of the worst in the world.”
And even months before that, in June, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick, spoke of “the huge magnitude of the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.” He continued, “This is one of the worst crises in the world and is continuing to get worse.”
Some humanitarian groups even go a step further. In a report in December, the international NGO Save the Children reported that “Yemen is in the grip of the largest humanitarian catastrophe in the world.” It added, “Yemen’s children are at the heart of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.”
Moreover, as I noted in this article, a prominent famine monitor created by the US government acknowledged in December that the US-backed war in Yemen has fueled the “largest food security emergency in the world.” And according to its analysis as well, that food security emergency is getting worse.
The Saudi war on Yemen, which could not be waged without US support, continues to destroy the poorest country in the Middle East, killing thousands of Yemenis and plunging millions more into hunger and desperation.
However, unlike wars like that in, say, Syria, Yemen gets virtually no attention in the US corporate media — yet alone in US politics, where it was not mentioned in an entire presidential campaign.
In Syria, Western enemies (the Syrian government, Russia, Iran) can be demonized; in Yemen, it is Saudi Arabia dropping the bombs — bombs made in the US and UK, with refueling provided by the US and direct assistance from the American and British militaries.


Instruction: Write an article about: Europe pays more for banned Russian oil, resold by India – as EU wages fall. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: China, de-dollarization, India, inflation, oil, ruble, Russia, sanctions, wages

Output:
The EU sanctioned Russia and boycotted its oil, yet is still buying it indirectly from India, at a higher price. This is fueling both de-dollarization and inflation in the Eurozone, where workers’ real wages dropped 6.5% from 2020 to 2022.

The European Union heavily sanctioned Russia and pledged to boycott its oil, yet continues to buy it, and at an even higher price, albeit indirectly.
India is importing record levels of discounted Russian crude, purchasing it in currencies other than the dollar. India then refines the Russian oil and exports fuel to Europe at a profit.
Meanwhile, increasing energy costs in Europe have stoked inflation, causing workers’ wages to significantly decline.
The real wages of workers in the Eurozone fell by 6.5% between 2020 and 2022.

As of April, Bloomberg reported, European imports of refined fuel from India are approaching 360,000 barrels per day.
This means that India is expected to soon surpass Saudi Arabia as the largest exporter of refined fuel to Europe.
At the same time, India is importing 44% of its oil from Russia, at an all-time high of approximately 2 million barrels per day, according to Bloomberg.
New Delhi is purchasing this crude at a significant discount.
India is on track to become Europe’s largest supplier of refined fuels this month while simultaneously buying record amounts of Russian crude https://t.co/VDxpiwPnIZ via @iamsharoncho pic.twitter.com/yM0G79TYdV
— Stuart Wallace (@StuartLWallace) April 28, 2023

In 2022, the G7 vowed to ban Russian energy. In December, the bloc of Western countries and Japan implemented a price cap on Russian oil of $60 per barrel.
The European Union agreed to the same price cap, before updating it in February with a $45 limit on petroleum products traded at a discount to crude and $100 for petroleum products traded at a premium to crude.
The Western economic war has led to a slight decrease in Moscow’s oil revenue, but has simultaneously pushed Russia to deepen its integration with Asia.
An April report by the Kyiv School of Economics, “Russian Oil Exports Under International Sanctions“, analyzed the effects of the G7 and EU price caps in the first quarter of 2023.
This study was sponsored by the Yermak-McFaul Expert Group on Russian Sanctions, which is supported by the Ukrainian and US governments and co-chaired by Andriy Yermak, the head of the office of the president of Ukraine, and Michael McFaul, the former US ambassador to Russia.
It found that Russian oil revenue did decrease by 29%, dropping from $54.5 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022 to $38.8 billion in the first quarter of 2023, for a total loss of $15.7 billion.
However, in the same period, global oil prices fell. The report estimated that $4.2 billion (27%) of Russia’s loss in oil revenue was due to the decline in international prices.
In fact, the study only attributed $6.1 billion (39%) in the loss in Russia’s oil export revenue directly to the sanctions, with an additional $5.2 billion (33%) lost in the discounts that Moscow gave to customers like India.
This is not nearly as much as many Western governments had hoped. And it led to some other, unexpected consequences.

Russia’s oil export earnings are now at around the same levels they were at in 2021, before Moscow’s February 2022 invasion and the escalation of the NATO proxy war in Ukraine.
At the same time, the volume of Russia’s crude exports has stayed rather consistent.

What has significantly changed is not the amount of oil produced by Russia, but rather the customers buying that crude.
The Kyiv School of Economics study showed that the vast majority of Russian oil exports now goes to Asia, primarily to China and India.

The report wrote:
European countries, previously the largest buyers, now play a negligible role and have been replaced almost entirely by China and India, with the latter appearing as the key “new” buyer over the past twelve months. In 2023Q1, the two countries together accounted for close to 75% of total Russian crude oil exports.
For years, and even throughout much of 2022, Russia had been Europe’s biggest energy supplier. Today, Moscow is looking east.
This transition reflects Russia’s increasing economic and political integration with Asia, and its move away from the West.
As an example of the sudden shift, the Financial Times noted that Russia’s northwestern port of Primorsk, on the Baltic Sea, had previously been used to send oil to Europe, but in the first quarter of 2023, India bought that crude instead, at a neat discount of just $43.9 per barrel.
The EU boycott of Russian energy has also contributed to further de-dollarization.
India is largely purchasing Russian oil in currencies other than the US dollar, including the ruble and the UAE’s dirham.
“U.S.-led international sanctions on Russia have begun to erode the dollar’s decades-old dominance of international oil trade as most deals with India – Russia’s top outlet for seaborne crude – have been settled in other currencies”, Reuters reported.
U.S.-led international sanctions on Russia have begun to erode the dollar's decades-old dominance of international oil trade as most deals with India – Russia's top outlet for seaborne crude – have been settled in other currencies https://t.co/99gykVJBm1
— Reuters (@Reuters) March 8, 2023

While Europe buys more expensive Russian energy from India, workers at home are suffering from increasing energy costs.
“Households across Europe are facing a persistent pinch from one of the worst cost of living crises since the second world war, despite inflation falling almost as quickly as it rose”, the Financial Times reported in April.
The newspaper estimated that real wages in the Eurozone dropped by 6.5% between 2020 and 2022. (Real wages are workers’ compensation that has been adjusted for inflation.)
In the EU, real wages are expected to stay 6% below 2020 levels until the end of 2024, the Financial Times said.
Inflation may be transitory, but the pain is set to last: “Households across Europe are facing a persistent pinch from one of the worst cost of living crises since the second world war, despite inflation falling almost as quickly as it rose.” pic.twitter.com/WWUg2KfIic
— Isabella M. Weber (@IsabellaMWeber) April 30, 2023

Workers in countries in the south of the Eurozone, like Greece, Spain, and Italy, have been especially hard hit, with their real wages falling by nearly 7%, 4.5%, and 3% in 2022, respectively.
The UK Office for Budget Responsibility “estimates that the period from the spring of 2022 to the spring of 2024 will mark the steepest decline in people’s real disposable incomes since records began in the 1950s”, the Financial Times wrote.
The newspaper warned: “Poorer people, who spend a bigger chunk of their income on essentials, have been most exposed to the rise in prices. They will continue to feel the squeeze hardest, with food costs continuing to soar even as energy prices fall”.
The Financial Times attributed this rapid decline in real wages to skyrocketing energy and food costs – which have been greatly exacerbated by Western sanctions on Russia.
Rising grocery bills are also a product of rampant price gouging by monopolistic corporations. This highly profitable practice is a growing problem that has been referred to as “greedflation”.
While real wages are declining across the West, the profit share of companies in the Eurozone is at a record high.
Bloomberg reported in 2022 that US corporate profits grew to their widest margins since 1950, “suggesting that the prices charged by businesses are outpacing their increased costs for production and labor”.


Instruction: Write an article about: Ukraine President Poroshenko whitewashes Nazi Holocaust crime, falsely blaming USSR. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: fascism, Holocaust, Nazis, Petro Poroshenko, Ukraine

Output:
Ukraine’s right-wing, Western-backed President Petro Poroshenko shared a photo of Nazis marching Jews to a death camp and falsely blamed it on the Soviet Union. It’s part of a pattern of Eastern European Holocaust revisionism.

Ukraine’s right-wing, NATO-allied government is rewriting history to portray the communists who defeated the Nazis as the real villains.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko tweeted a photo on October 20 and wrote, “Today, the 70th anniversary of mass deportation of the population of Western Ukraine to Siberia and the northern regions of the former USSR. Remember.”

Poroshenko falsely implied that this was a photo from the Soviet Union.
The watchdog group Defending History exposed the Ukrainian president’s lies, tweeting, “Dear @poroshenko Photo you shared isn’t 1947 #Ukraine Siberia deportations, but Jews from Lodz ghetto being marched to death camp in 1942!”
Dear @poroshenko Photo you shared isn't 1947 #Ukraine Siberia deportations, but  Jews from Lodz ghetto being marched to death camp in 1942! pic.twitter.com/IlXsI4M9os
— Defending History (@DefendingHistor) October 24, 2017

The Ukrainian president had actually shared a photo of a Nazi crime against humanity from the middle of the Holocaust.
The image is archived at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which notes the photo is actually from Lodz, Poland in 1942.
It is captioned: “Elderly women carrying young children and bundles of personal belongings trudge along a street in the Lodz ghetto toward the assembly point for deportations to Chelmno.”
These were victims of the Third Reich, not of the Soviet Union – which crushed the Nazi regime.

The Ukrainian government is erasing Nazi Holocaust crimes in order to demonize the communists who defeated fascism in World War II.
After journalists highlighted Poroshenko’s outlandish propaganda, the Ukrainian president deleted his tweet. (It is archived here.)
Blatant anti-communist lies like these are far from new. This is one example of a much longer pattern of right-wing forces helping fascists whitewash their history and even rebrand in an effort to create anti-communist propaganda.
This July, NATO published a highly produced film that celebrates Baltic Nazi collaborators who murdered Jews in the Holocaust, lionizing the so-called Forest Brothers, many of whom had previously fought in the Waffen SS, as heroes for taking up arms against the Soviets.
This is a particularly common phenomenon in Ukraine, where the fascist leader Stepan Bandera, who collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust, enjoys widespread support.
Fascists occupy some of the highest positions in the Ukrainian government. Andriy Parubiy, the chair of Ukraine’s parliament the Rada, in fact, is a white supremacist fascist who previously founded a Nazi-style party.
Defending History is a research group led by European Jewish scholars dedicated to countering the fascist assault on history, and says it helps lead:
opposition to attempts to prosecute Holocaust survivors; opposition to the Prague Declaration; opposition to elitist antisemitism and  state-sanctioned city center neo-Nazi marches; opposition to attempts to glorify the local perpetrators and collaborators, and institutions engaged in such efforts; opposition to the Double Genocide movement emanating particularly from the eastern regions of the European Union.


Instruction: Write an article about: Is a huge war coming? US bombs Yemen, Iraq & Syria. Israel bombs Gaza & Lebanon. Both threaten Iran.. Use the themes and topics represented by the tags provided as guidance for the content. It's not necessary to include the exact tag words in the article, but the article should reflect the essence and context of these tags.

Input: Ansarallah, Donald Trump, Gaza, Houthis, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Joe Biden, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Yemen

Output:
The US military is attacking Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, while Israel bombs Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria. Both are threatening Iran. Is a large Middle East (West Asia) war coming?

The brutal war that Israel is waging on Gaza is increasingly becoming a regional conflict.
Since October, the United States and Israel have bombed not only Gaza, but also Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.
Now, the U.S. government is even threatening Iran with war. President Joe Biden sent the Iranian government a private message while the U.S. military was bombing Yemen on January 13. He said threateningly, “We’re confident, we’re well prepared”.

While this is happening, South Africa has introduced a case in the International Court of Justice, the top United Nations judicial authority, which accuses Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people.
South Africa’s case has garnered support from dozens of countries across the Global South.
This case has frightened Israel and its sponsors in Washington. They are apparently seeking to expand the conflict into a regional war, to try to win more sympathy and to turn attention away from what South Africa and many countries have referred to as a genocide in Gaza.
In fact, top UN experts have been warning precisely this for months: that the Palestinian people face “the risk of genocide in Gaza”, and that there has been a “failure of the international system to mobilise to prevent genocide”.
The Financial Times reported in December that, in just two months of Israeli bombing, Gaza had become one of the most heavily bombed areas in human history.
Israel's genocidal war has made Gaza one of the most heavily bombed areas in human history.https://t.co/jd4D7e32tM
— Geopolitical Economy Report (@GeopoliticaEcon) January 19, 2024

Now that Israel faces formal charges of genocide at the Hague, many officials in Washington are concerned, because the U.S. is directly complicit in the war crimes that Israel is committing.
The Joe Biden administration has sent billions of dollars of weapons and military aid to Israel.
In fact, the US State Department has bypassed Congress two times, using emergency measures to send weapons to Israel. This is rather strange, because Congress is full of people who strongly support Israel, and would without a doubt have approved these arms shipments.
This appears to indicate that the US government does not even want a debate about these arms shipments. Washington is concerned about people focusing their attention on its complicity in arming Israel. So it is simply choosing to do so quietly, without Congress’ approval.
And the U.S. is involved in these conflicts in many other ways, not simply by arming Israel.
In fact, the U.S. military has 57,000 personnel stationed all across the so-called Middle East, or more accurately, West Asia.
These are just the U.S. military personnel that are publicly disclosed. It is likely that the U.S. also has covert special operations forces that are not accounted for among this 57,000.
The U.S. has more than 57,000 personnel in the Middle East.
Eastern Mediterranean: 12.500Jordan: 3.500Egypt: 500Syria: 900Iraq: 2.000Israel: 100Saudi Arabia: 2.500Kuwait: 10.000Bahrain: 4.500Qatar: 10.000UAE: 5.000Red Sea: 4.500
Source: FT pic.twitter.com/4vpeVx9xzy
— Clash Report (@clashreport) January 12, 2024

In just a few months, the U.S. has bombed Yemen, Iraq, and Syria.
On January 11, the United States launched airstrikes against dozens of targets in Yemen.
The New York Times referred to these as US attacks on the so-called “Houthi militia” in Yemen. But this is very misleading.
The “Houthis”, which are officially known as Ansarullah, represent the government for the majority of the Yemeni population.
This was acknowledged even by the mainstream Washington, DC-based think tank the Brookings Institution. It published an article in 2023 by a former CIA analyst, Bruce Riedel, who admitted that “the Houthis have created a functioning government”, one that “includes representatives of other groups”.
“Some 70 to 80% of Yemenis live under the Houthis’ control”, Riedel wrote.
He conceded that Ansarullah had its origins in the grassroots in Yemen, opposing the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Washington’s subsequent wars and interventionist policies across West Asia.
At Brookings, the former CIA analyst likewise confessed that the United States had spent six years supporting a scorched-earth “war led by a neighbor most Yemenis hate”, that is to say, Saudi Arabia. He added, “Air strikes, blockades, and intentional mass starvation are the characteristics of a war the United States has supported”.
The United Nations estimated that this U.S.-Saudi war killed at least 377,000 Yemenis from 2015 to the end of 2021.
So when the United States launched dozens of attacks inside Yemen this January, Washington was continuing a war that it has waged against the de facto Yemeni government for nearly nine years. The so-called “Houthis” are not just a “militia”; they are leading the government.
And while it was previously Saudi Arabia that was relentlessly bombing civilian areas in Yemen (using U.S.-made planes and bombs, with intelligence and targeting assistance from the Pentagon), now it is the United States that is cutting out the middle man and attacking Yemen directly.
Moreover, the New York Times acknowledged in its report on the Biden administration’s airstrikes that Ansarullah has “greeted the prospect of war with the United States with open delight”.
One of Ansarullah’s most important leaders said in a televised speech, “We, the Yemeni people, are not among those who are afraid of America. We are comfortable with a direct confrontation with the Americans”.
As if that weren’t enough, after this prominent Yemeni leader said publicly that his country is prepared to fight against the United States, a day later, on January 12, the U.S. again launched airstrikes against Yemen.
Reporting on the second US attack, the New York Times commented, “The strikes come amid fears of a wider escalation of the conflict in the Middle East”.
This description is quite euphemistic. In reality, the U.S. is creating a wider conflict in the region by expanding the war, and attacking not only Yemen, but also Iraq and Syria.
On January 4, the Biden administration carried out an act of war against Iraq.
The New York Times reported that the U.S. launched a drone strike in the capital Baghdad. An Iraqi government spokesman referred to this as a “flagrant violation of the sovereignty and security of Iraq”. He characterized the U.S. attack as “no different from a terrorist act”.
The U.S. targeted an Iraqi militia known as Harakat al-Nujaba. This organization is part of the Iraqi government, the New York Times conceded, writing that “it remains part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces, a security organization that is in turn part of the government’s broader security forces”.
So the U.S. was attacking Iraq’s security forces.
However, in 2019, the Donald Trump administration had declared this Iraqi state institution to be a so-called “terrorist” organization. And now the Biden administration is continuing Trump’s policy of attacking the Iraqi government.
In response to Washington’s assault on his country, Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, publicly called for the U.S.-led foreign troops in his country to leave.
U.S. troops have consistently occupied Iraq since the illegal invasion of 2003. The U.S. war has gone through phases, but it has basically never ended.
It should be emphasized that al-Sudani is by no means an anti-U.S. leader. In Iraqi politics, there are many anti-U.S. figures; he is not one of them. But even he is now publicly stating that Washington needs to stop occupying and attacking his country, and that its troops need to leave.
Nevertheless, the website Breaking Defense, which is close to the Pentagon, responded to al-Sudani’s comments reporting: “Despite Iraqi PM’s call, US troops won’t likely leave Iraq anytime soon”. It cited U.S. analysts with internal access.
So this is essentially acknowledgment that the U.S. maintains a neo-colonial occupation of Iraq.
This is not the first time that this has happened. Back in January 2020, Donald Trump ordered the assassination of the top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and the senior Iraqi security official Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis. The latter was a commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces, which are officially part of the Iraqi government, and which were absolutely instrumental in the war against ISIS.
These leaders, Soleimani and al-Muhandis, were two of the most important people in the fight to defeat ISIS. Trump assassinated both of them in a blatant act of war, not only against Iran, but also against Iraq.
In response to this U.S. act of war, Iraq’s democratically elected parliament (which was ironically created by the United States) voted to expel the U.S. troops occupying the country.
Trump say no, refusing to leave. The far-right U.S. president then threatened to impose sanctions on Iraq.
Despite the U.S. government’s flagrantly neo-colonial policies, the Western media’s coverage of Iraq essentially portrays the situation as if Iran were secretly in control of the country.
When the U.S. carries out acts of war against Iraq, killing Iraqi officials who are part of the Iraqi state’s security apparatus, the Western media misleadingly describes these murdered Iraqi officials as “pro-Iran military commanders”.
This propagandistic rhetoric is reminiscent of how the Western media invariably refers to Yemen’s so-called Houthis, Ansarullah, as “Iran- backed”, trying to depict them as Iranian proxies. The same is true for Lebanon’s indigenous resistance group Hezbollah.
This is part and parcel of a Western media propaganda narrative that seeks to justify U.S. acts of war and neo-colonial policies against sovereign governments across West Asia.
Another clear example of this is recent U.S. attacks in Syria.
In November, the U.S. military launched airstrikes in sovereign Syrian territory. The BBC reported on this illegal U.S. act of war writing, “US airstrikes target more Iran-backed bases in Syria”.
The double standard is quite clear when one considers how these same Western media outlets would never dare to refer to attacks by Palestinian groups on Israeli military forces as strikes on “pro-U.S. forces” in “U.S.-backed bases”.
In fact, as Geopolitical Economy Report has documented, the U.S. is maintaining an illegal military occupation of Syria, and in particular of the nation’s oil-rich territory, where much of its wheat is also produced.
The stated policy of U.S. officials is to starve the Syrian government of revenue that it needs to rebuild after a decade of war fueled by the United States devastated the country.
In December, there was a resolution introduced in the Senate calling to withdraw the U.S. troops occupying Syria’s oil fields. It failed to pass in a vote of 13 to 84.
The US military has illegally occupied Syrian sovereign territory since 2014, preventing Damascus from accessing its own oil and wheat fields.
The Senate voted 13-84, rejecting a resolution to withdraw US troops.https://t.co/RC27DFnleC
— Geopolitical Economy Report (@GeopoliticaEcon) January 5, 2024

While the U.S. is bombing Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, Israel is also attacking multiple countries in the region.
In October, Israel repeatedly bombed airports in Syria, in both Aleppo and Damascus, killing Syrian troops.
In January, Israel launched many more attacks on Syria. And once again, the Western media misleadingly portrayed these Israeli acts of war as “strikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria”.
The Western media seeks to make everything about Iran, implying that Tehran controls all of these governments, when in reality it is the U.S. and Israel that are at war with many sovereign states in the region.
Israel has also been repeatedly assaulting its neighbor, Lebanon.
Amnesty International acknowledged that Israel has attacked southern Lebanon with white phosphorus, a horrific weapon that is banned by many countries.
Amnesty International emphasized that Israel has been killing Lebanese civilians in illegal, “indiscriminate” attacks.
But Israel is not only attacking southern Lebanon; it has also carried out drone strikes inside Beirut, the capital of the country.
Lebanon’s resistance group Hezbollah has long defended the country’s sovereignty, expelling Israel in 2000 after the colonial regime carried out an illegal military occupation of Lebanon for 15 years.
Hezbollah has said Israel’s attacks in the capital Beirut cross a red line and are risking a wider regional war.
While the Western media warns that U.S. and Israeli attacks on countries in the region “raise the specter of a wider regional war”, the reality is that Washington and Tel Aviv are already at war with Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
It is obvious that the main target of U.S. and Israeli neo-colonial wars in West Asia is Iran.
This was confirmed by a former top U.S. military general and NATO commander, Wesley Clark, who revealed back in 2007 that, after the attacks on September 11, 2001, Washington made plans to overthrow the governments of seven countries in the region in five years.
In an interview with Democracy Now host Amy Goodman, Clark said that the U.S. had plans “to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran”.
In late 2023 and early 2024, the U.S. government has made this link clearly in public statements. Washington publicly blamed Iran for Ansarullah in Yemen launching attacks on ships in the Red Sea that are traveling to Israel, that are providing support to Tel Aviv as it carries out war crimes and faces charges of genocide at the Hague.
A top U.S. official claimed, “Iran is a primary, if not the primary enabler or supporter or sponsor of the Houthis”, and the U.S. government claimed that Iran is “involved in every phase” of what Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called “illegal, dangerous and destabilizing attacks against U.S. and international vessels and commercial vessels”.
War hawks in Washington are using this as an opportunity to openly call for a U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
John Bolton, the neoconservative extremist who served as Donald Trump’s national security adviser and was an architect of the Iraq War under former President George W Bush, published an article in the conservative British newspaper The Telegraph titled “The West may now have no option but to attack Iran”.
Bolton released that call for war on Iran on December 28. He likely coordinated it with Israel’s former prime minister, Naftali Bennett, who on the same day published an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal titled “The U.S. and Israel Need to Take Iran on Directly”.
In his article, Bennett boasted that when he was prime minister, Israel carried out numerous attacks on Iranian soil. He also admitted that Tel Aviv assassinated Iranian officials.
Bennett called to “empower domestic opposition [in Iran], ensure internet continuity during riots against the regime, strengthen its enemies, increase sanctions and economic pressures”.
In his last paragraph, Naftali Bennett said in no uncertain terms, “The U.S. and Israel must set the clear goal of bringing down Iran’s evil regime”.
Using colonial language, the former Israeli prime minister declared that the so-called “civilized world” must overthrow Iran’s government.
This is clearly what all of this is heading toward: Some bellicose officials in the U.S. and Israeli governments want not only a wider regional war, but more specifically a full-out war against Iran.
Many of these hard-line imperialists in Washington have salivated for many years at the idea of war with Tehran. Back in 2015, Bolton wrote an article for the New York Times straightforwardly titled “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran”.
In fact, Michael Freund, a former spokesman for Israel’s current far-right prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, published an op-ed this January in the Jerusalem Post titled “Iran is already at war with Israel and the US”. In this piece, he insisted that “Israel and America must act now”, calling for war with Tehran.
Freund’s bio conspicuously noted that he was previously “deputy communications director under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu”. It is quite possible that he coordinated this article with Netanyahu himself.
On January 3, there was a terror attack on civilians in the Iranian city of Kerman. More than 90 Iranians were killed, at an event that was commemorating the anniversary of the Trump administration’s assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the top Iranian general.
Western media outlets claimed that “ISIS” carried out this attack. Iranian intelligence officials said one of the terrorists who planted the bombs that killed at least 94 civilians had Israeli nationality.