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THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: WHAT GOES THROUGH YOUR MIND WHEN YOU READ THINGS LIKE GENOCIDE?

06 Monday May 2024

Posted by in Genocide, Israel and Palestine

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( Four minute read)

The word genocide is not new, the concept is ancient.

On the historical heels of the physical and cultural genocide of North American indigenous peoples during the nineteenth century, the twentieth century writhed from the near- complete annihilation of the Herero’s by the Germans in Southwest Africa in 1904; to the brutal assault on the Armenian population by the Turks between 1915 and 1932; to the implementation of Soviet manmade famine against the Ukrainian Kulaks in 1932–1933 that left several million peasants starving to death; to the extermination of two-thirds of Europe’s Jews during the Holocaust of 1939–1945; to the massacre of approximately half a million people in Indonesia in 1965–1966; to genocide or mass killings in Bangladesh (1971), Burundi (1972), Cambodia (1975–1979), East Timor (1975–1979), Argentina (1976–1983), Guatemala (1980s–1990s), Sri Lanka (1983–2009), Iraq (1987–1988), the former Yugoslavia (1992–1995), and Rwanda (1994).

Genocidal death rates worldwide— 7,700 per 100,000—were an eight-fold increase over the previous 69 centuries. Close to 170 million civilians were done to death by their own governments in the twentieth century.

It is clear that genocide cannot be confined to one culture, place, or time in modern history. Even the most restrictive of definitions estimates that at least 60 million men, women, and children were victims of genocide and mass killing in the past century alone.

The reality—for genocide IS THAT  it is a human problem and, as such, has a human solution.

It is not a problem that came to us from another world or was ingrained in our behavioural genetic repertoire. At its root, genocide happens because we choose to see a people rather than individual people and then we choose to kill those people in large numbers and over an extended period of time.

It is often assumed that genocide must be caused by extraordinary psychological processes – processes that are outside of or defy the logic of normal human functioning and that cannot be easily understood.

Dehumanization is central to every genocide.

We know from the Holocaust, Cambodian Genocide, Rwandan genocide and many other cases that victim groups were labelled as vermin, cockroaches, rats or snakes.

The decision to exterminate a group of people is the extreme end of a continuum that lies beyond proclamations that they cannot live, worship, or love as they see fit and beyond decisions to ghettoize them or force them out of your country.

However, while it is certainly beyond our imagination what it means to experience, witness, or perpetrate genocide, the psychological processes that lead up to that point and enable people to engage in “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group” (as genocide is defined in Article II 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide) are not.

Genocide is not a qualitatively distinct category of human behaviour – it follows ordinary principles of human cognition, affect, and behaviour that certain societal and political conditions (such as political upheaval, prior genocide, autocratic rule, and low trade openness) allow to escalate into more and more severe violence.

However, dehumanization does not only occur during genocide, or what we officially recognize as genocide. This blatant dehumanization predicts several violent outcomes such as support for torture and bombing of civilians, drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan, or detention and solitary confinement of undocumented immigrants.

Exclusionary ideologies are one of the main predictors of genocide

Deep inequalities that are a source of oppression and violence. People become desensitized to violence they are exposed to; and participating in violence makes us more likely to engage in future violence

We should therefore never give in to the illusion and optimistic bias—which also helps explain some behaviours of victim groups in times of genocide that reduce their survival, as well as the likelihood of resistance—that we are immune to the risk of genocide.

Genocide can take rightful claim as the most pressing human rights problem of the twenty-first century.

We can make another choice; We can find constructive, rather than destructive, ways to live with our diverse social identities.

For decades, Israel, aided and abetted by the American empire, has sought to politically erase Palestine from the map. Over the past few days, Palestinians have proved, once again, that they won’t easily give up their indigenous claim to and sovereignty over the land stolen from them.

From the deep, non-utilitarian connection between a people and their ancestral land – a connection that renders meaningless all other political impositions.

This is exactly what the Israeli state has long been seeking to erase.

Palestinians have, for decades, tried to put under a global spotlight the violence Israel has been inflicting on them on a daily basis.

Even if they are wiped off the have of the earth they have recorded all the killings, the torture and the abuse, so people from across the world will continue to see their struggles reflected in the Palestinian struggle, ensuring that Palestine as a political story, a political vision, and as a revelation of the current political conditions and systems of power, will never be erased from the hearts and minds of people the world over.

What are we in the free world doing about it.

As Israel intensified its efforts to erase Palestine and Palestinian people from Arab and global consciousness, we have international Verbal diarrhoea voiced support, repeatedly and loudly, for Israel abiding and abetting Israel’s colonial oppression and basically encouraged it to intensify its efforts to expel Palestinians from their remaining lands and erase Palestine from history and global politics.

No state or actor in this current system can gain enough authority and power to ensure its safety and dictate its will on the global community by merely speaking of higher ideals.

In fact, higher ideals are proclaimed in this wretched world order only to conceal the brutal violence required to gain and maintain any authority whatsoever.

they are going to be made worse by the ongoing actions of the Israeli state, which is determined, regardless of how Palestinians resist, to erase Palestine and officially create what they already achieved in practice: exclusive Israeli-Jewish sovereignty over the entire land of Palestine.

The reality is that Palestinians have been dehumanised to such an extent, that even when they hold up their murdered children in front of cameras and display them to the world, there are those who will still say they are responsible for their own children’s deaths. But make no mistake, what we are seeing in Gaza is an unfolding genocide and Palestinians are showing the world what it looks like in real time.

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Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S : WHEN THIS WAR BETWEEN ISRAEL AND PALISTIAN ENDS WHAT SORT OF COUNTRY WILL ISRAEL BE? NEVER MIND WHAT’S LEFT OF PALISTIAN.

04 Thursday Apr 2024

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( Fifteen minute read)

As global attention has turned to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, many Israelis are on a parallel warpath to convince the world they are victims, not aggressors.

Indeed any country has the right to defend its self but not to extent that it creates a genocide.

The slogan Yachad Nenatzeach!, Together We Will Win!, is everywhere in Israel:

Once there is no more Muslim land in the land of Israel … after we make it the land of Israel, Gaza should be left as a monument, like Sodom.

Of all forms of human error, prophecy is the most avoidable.

Israelis’ sense of security has been undermined.

The fear among Israelis is that if Hamas can do it once they can do it again.

By moving methodically through the Strip, Israel slowly pushed over a million Gazans into Rafah along Gaza’s southern border. It is only now poised to take Hamas’s last remaining stronghold, with international opposition, even among Israel’s closest friends, reaching a verbal fever pitch, the UK/USA are breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel.

The UK government does not directly supply Israel with weapons, but does grant export licences for British companies to sell arms to the country.

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When people fight a war that begins with a murderous genocidal attack by one side on the other, the side that was attacked is less inclined to be empathetic towards its enemies.A woman in a headscarf carries bags through the rubble of a destroyed building

However the demolition of much of Gaza will make it difficult for Israel as a society to function.

“More of the same”

Continuation of a war in the Gaza Strip, albeit at a diminished intensity, dragging on for an extended period, turning into a protracted war of attrition, resembling the eighteen-year Israeli presence in the security strip in southern Lebanon or the Soviet engagement in Afghanistan aligns well with the alt-right’s so-called Decisive Plan.

While everyone’s attention would remain fixated on Gaza, where the primary efforts of the regular army would continue to be concentrated, local settlement guards or militias functioning as irregular or semiregular units, akin to paramilitaries, could turn the West Bank into hell on Earth.

———————

Is there a way back from the hardness of Israeli hearts in the face of hundreds of thousands of people who because of our war are fighting like animals for pieces of food, a safe place where their children can lay down their heads, medicine, clean water and dignity?  The answer is probably yes, but its going to take generations.

On the current trajectory of Israel’s attacks from the air, sea and the ground, Gaza looks set to be an enclave with 2.3 million people essentially living in rubble.

The fear among Palestinians is that Israel wants a “second Nakba”. Palestinians use the word Nakba — Arabic for “catastrophe” — to refer to the estimated 750,000 Palestinians who were forced to leave — or fled in fear – upon the formation of Israel in 1948. Many Palestinians believe the reason Israel is bombing Gaza so heavily is to make it unliveable so that eventually the majority, if not all, of the citizens, facing starvation, will force their way into Egypt.

The 1948 expulsion remains an animating force in Palestinian identity, and it changed the demographics of Israel.

The Jerusalem Post — has carried a prominent opinion piece advocating the emptying of Gaza. That in itself is extraordinary — the most read English-language newspaper for Jewish communities around the world running the argument that the new home for Palestinians in Gaza should be Egypt.

Flattening the whole strip so it becomes an empty museum like Auschwitz.

Joel Roskin, an academic from Israel’s Bar Ilan University, said  that the major portions of Gaza were now considerably incapacitated and cannot be simply fixed. “Rather, the damaged and destroyed structures must be completely torn down. The tunnelled – and consequently exploded and bulldozed — soil must undergo extensive environmental and engineering rehabilitation … the facts demonstrate that the northern Sinai Peninsula is an ideal location to develop a spacious resettlement for the people of Gaza. Its open areas, along with the existing infrastructure, can easily host large-scale development projects that, if led by the Chinese and supported by local labour, for example, can easily mature in just one to two years.”  Bull shit!

Writing in Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Sfard questioned who Israelis would be after the war, asking “how many tons of coldness and indifference have settled inside us in order for us to turn high-rise buildings into dust, promenades and plazas into ruins and a million and a half people into displaced people who have nothing?

“And what will become of a society whose media outlets, which provide it with information about its deeds, have refrained for over 10 weeks from bringing even a single interview – a single one! – with a resident of Gaza to tell what’s happening to them; who censor the pictures of the dead children and the weeping mothers, the children that we killed and the mothers whose bereavement we caused? The Israeli TV channels are shaping our collective perceptions not only by means of what they show, but also, and perhaps mainly, by means of what they’re hiding from us.”

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects any suggestion of ethnic cleansing, insisting that the primary aim of Israel’s military action is to “destroy Hamas”.

It’s debatable whether this can actually be done — Hamas is in part an ideology and idea, it’s also one of many groups whose aims are “resistance” to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and, along with Egypt, its blockade of Gaza.

Hamas, in turn, makes no secret of its ultimate aim – its charter commits it to the eradication of the state of Israel.

The longer term issue for Israel is that an entire new generation of young Palestinians could be radicalised by seeing their homes and sometimes their families destroyed.

At this crossroads, neither Israel, Iran nor Hezbollah wants an all-out war that would have terrible consequence for all of them. But no side seems ready to stop the slide towards it.

That Israel must, instead, finally agree to a two-state solution under which Palestinians have their own state is a grave mistake.

WHO WOULD WANT TO LIVE IN A COUNTRY THAT WILL NEED MORE THAN WIRE FENCING OR A WALL TO MAKE IT SECURE IN THE FUTURE.

 There will be a profound shift in Israel’s concept of security: many believe they must now protect themselves.

Several proposals have been put forward to end the conflict between Israel and Hamas with the U.S., Egypt and Qatar pushing to de-escalate in phases. But major sticking points about who should govern Gaza are blocking progress as Israel doesn’t want to govern and is against the top contender, the Palestinian Authority. So why is coming to a consensus for a ceasefire or peace deals so difficult?

There’s now only a one state solution.

———————

As the conflict with Hamas bleeds across borders, is wider violence inevitable?

Even if the Gaza war winds down, Israelis are shifting their gaze toward their northern border, preparing themselves for a potential new war — with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Iranian-backed group is better armed than Hamas, with long-range missiles that could paralyze the country.

Historical precedents abound: paramilitary groups of this kind take orders from local commanders or charismatic political figures and are loyal only to them, not directly beholden to the central authority.

Israel’s war with Hamas has served to energise already existing tensions.

Without an end in sight, at present – the war is in danger of creating its own dynamic. And for now at least, the reality of the cross-border exchanges has a greater clarity than the rhetoric enfolding them.

———–

What sort of country will Israel be after this war? And will Gaza be liveable, or will its 2.3 million citizens be forced to move to the Sinai desert in Egypt?

No body really knows how this is going to end.

Even if the Israel pushes what remains of the Palestinians into the Sinai Desert and succeeds in dismantling Hamas as an organized military force in Gaza, it will survive as “a terror group and a guerrilla group.

Even if Israel changes it leader there is little room for wishful thinking here.

The likelihood of a left-wing government materializing due to internal protests appears scant. Far more probable is that Israelis will be drawn to a hawkish leader exemplifying strength and authority, typically a retired general with a distinguished military career, with a capacity to assume responsibility and navigate intra-Jewish divides.

Any withdrawal by Israel, including under a hostage deal, would create a vacuum that Hamas would do everything it can to fill as it emerges from its tunnels.

Those measures might assist in holding off Hamas in the coming months, but Israel still needs a long-term solution. That means actively replacing Hamas while it is still underground.

Discussing a plan for the future governance of Gaza brings with it political complications.

Who will replace Hamas?

Gaza will become an area in deep crisis.

——————-

It’s time for Israel’s allies to say: ‘Enough’

To stop selling arms.

When is a war crime not a war crime?  Answer: when it’s done by an allied nation.

This will only happen when western governments, whose history of hypocrisy that fill many pages of history’s sad story of human exploitation, decide the political cost to them of ignoring the Palestinian deaths inflicted by their own weapons is higher than the cost of the current policy.

Key actors—Palestinian, Israeli, regional, and global—have staked out very different, often antagonistic positions on critical questions. UN interference is necessary, and it should take the shape of an interim, multinational peacekeeping force similar to the one that was tasked to facilitate the transition to an independent East Timor in 1999 or the NATO-led force deployed to Kosovo in the same year.

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The world we live in is changing at an astonishing pace. New technologies and ways of thinking are rapidly altering the way that human beings live, do business, communicate and interact with other. In just 40 years we have gone from rotary dial phones to 5G smart devices capable of accessing the collective knowledge of humanity. And the field of warfare is no exception.

Approaches to warfare that 30, 20 or even five years ago would have guaranteed success on the battlefield have now been made redundant. It can no longer be assumed that because a tactic worked in a previous conflict that it will work today. As the current Ukrain war with Russia shows modern day warfare does not require solders on the ground.9Land BMS

Today’s conflicts can also extend to the domains of cyber and space.

In the cyber domain, orchestrated hacking campaigns conducted on the behalf of nations can disable and shut down key pieces of civilian infrastructure and institutions, leaving nations in a state of panic and vulnerable to attack.

New technologies are also constantly rewriting the rule book for warfare –  AI – Drones.

It seems likely that the coming years will see a major focus on soldier systems that ‘declutter’ the battlefield for soldiers by providing information on threats and targets as they are needed.

The decision on whether what that soldier sees is a friend or a foe comes entirely down to their own judgement and discretion. Making the decision can be extremely difficult in a confusing battlefield environment. To make life easier for soldiers, future weapons may have electronically flags popping up in the sight, telling them whether they’re aiming at a friend. Prior to firing, the weapon would send a small electromagnetic pulse at the target. If no response is received back from a friendly transceiver, the soldier will know they are not aiming at their own troops and will be able to confidently proceed.

So, while modern conflicts are being waged in the most complex environments in history, are there solutions to bring clarity to the minds of both soldiers in the field and leaders.  NO.

We see something terrible and then it disappears.

What are the rules of war?

It’s a timely question in the wake of attacks on civilians, aid workers and hospitals in conflict zones around the world.

However enforcing out of date rules can be difficult.

For example, the five veto-holding permanent members of the Security Council — the U.S., China, Russia, the U.K. and France — must vote unanimously to pursue a resolution that might call for an investigation, refer a case to a court for trial, threaten sanctions or propose another motion. But often one or several of these countries has a vested interest in the conflict in question.

You would be more than naïve if you do not realise by now that Israel is not currently using AI.  Indeed its has a program called Lavender choosing targets to bomb. An artificial intelligence tool developed for the war, marked 37,000 Palestinians as suspected Hamas operatives.

Mistakes were treated statistically. SUCH AS THE RECENT KILLING OF SIX INTERNATIONAL AID WORKERS.

We need to keep saying that these protections are valuable, they’re worthy, and they speak to our common humanity.

All human comments appreciated.  All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: WE NOW ENTERING INTO A MORAL DARKNESS IN THE ISRAEL /PALESTINE WAR.

10 Saturday Feb 2024

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(Two minute read)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the Israeli army and other officials to submit to the cabinet a plan to evacuate Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost governorate.

International humanitarian law prohibits the forced displacement of civilians except when temporarily required for their security or imperative military reasons.

Forcing the over one million displaced Palestinians in Rafah to again evacuate without a safe place to go would be unlawful and would have catastrophic consequences.

I say that its time that all states that are party to the Genocide Convention now have a legal obligation BEFORE IT TOO LATE.  To take material steps to put an end to Israel’s genocidal acts in the besieged Strip.

If they dont do so we are very likely entering another long and painful era where armed struggle and violent domination become increasingly and mutually dependent on each other for survival. Yet neither can win.

After Hamas’s deadly attacks in Israel and Israel’s hellish bombardment of Gaza is the world going to sit back and watch what remains of Gaza and its people wiped from the face of the earth, endorsing further murderous violence against civilians.

Who gets to count as human?

The real aim of Israel’s lobbying efforts to undermine UNRWA is the liquidation of the Palestinian identity and the right of return of the Palestinian people that the UN agency has come to embody. If the Western states, and especially the United States, continue to bow down to Israel’s genocidal demands they will only add further weight to the accusations that they are complicit in its genocide in Gaza.

What is at stake today is not only the future of millions of Palestinians and the very viability of the Israeli state, but the stability of an entire region, and the future of the rules-based world order.

The Palestinians will remain. They cannot be eliminated. Israel too will continue to exist. The future is full of unnecessary and horrific bloodshed all around.

Terrorist organisations like ISIL and al-Qaeda could not have asked for a better environment to regroup and mount new attacks on the West, as the global majority now views the West solidly as an enabler of the ongoing genocide of an occupied and oppressed Indigenous people.

The international community must first ensure the safety of the Palestinian people.

Given the current gridlock and the total devastation of Gaza, the first step towards ending occupation should be to bring the Palestinian people – who have now been identified by ICJ as a unique “group” – under international protection.

The inclusion of Hamas in any peace process is crucial as no sustainable settlement can be achieved without acknowledging the concerns and expectations of the group that has led Palestinian armed struggle against occupation for many years.

This means the killing must stop, captives on both sides should be released, the siege should end, adequate aid and basic services should reach all Palestinians in Gaza immediately.

The international community must make it clear to Israel that it cannot infringe on the territorial integrity of Gaza by occupying any part of the territory, establishing a so-called “buffer zone” within it or dividing it into smaller settlements.

The international community must unanimously call for an immediate and unconditional cessation of all illegal construction and land-grabbing activities in the West Bank and demand accountability for the violence and aggression perpetrated by Israeli settlers against the Palestinians. World’s nations must insist on Israel decommissioning all the settlers outposts in the West Bank, and obviating any such intentions in the Gaza Strip.

To ensure that the Palestinian people can live freely and with dignity under the governance of their own elected representatives, the international community should officially recognise a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital and commit to ensuring the swift implementation of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals in post conflict Palestine.

Desperate western attachment to morally bankrupt double standards bears a large portion of the blame.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com

THE BEADY EYE ASK’S: IS THE USA ITCHING FOR YET ANOTHER WAR?

04 Sunday Feb 2024

Posted by in 2024 the year of disconnection, President of the USA., The USA., Ukraine/Russian war., Unanswered Questions., USA Presidential Election, Wars, What Needs to change in the World, Where's the Global Outrage., World Leaders

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( Four minute read)

The U.S. is in danger of slow-walking itself into a war with Iran.

ONE WOULD THINK:  THAT AFTER THE RECENT US INVOLVEMENT IN DISASTROUS WARS, THAT IT AND ALL OF US, WOULD LEARN THAT MILARTY DETERRENCES DON’T WORK.

Since Biden refuses to pressure Israel to stop its bombardment of Gaza and accept a ceasefire, he is escalating the US confrontation with the Houthis.

Biden and his administration are practically sleepwalking the US into another war.

In the process, Biden risks entangling the US in another open-ended conflict, which is likely to expand by accident or miscalculation, rather than by design.

Either way, it threatens to prolong the forever war.

With persistent support of Israel, the Biden administration has alienated its allies in the Arab world and is now a heartbeat or an election result away from another war that it will lose.

The Gaza invasion has already spilled into clashes in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and the Red Sea.

They all require serious effort and inevitable trade-offs.

Why

Because it’s nearly impossible to dislodge an Indigenous insurgent movement without a huge commitment of ground troops.

Because today’s U.S. military is not designed to fight wars against two major rivals simultaneously.

This isn’t because the United States is in decline.

It’s because unlike the United States, which needs to be strong in all three of these places, each of its adversaries—China, Russia, and Iran—only has to be strong in its own home region to achieve its objectives.

Because in past conflicts, it was always able to outproduce its opponents. That’s no longer the case:

Because in past conflicts, it could easily outspend adversaries. That’s no longer the case:

All of that pales alongside the human costs that the United States could suffer in a global conflict.

In the event of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, the United States would be hard-pressed to rebuff the attack while keeping up the flow of support to Ukraine and Israel.

——————-

The US administration has multiple options to lean on the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

It could threaten to withhold billions of dollars in military aid, which allow Israel to continue its assault, or it could stop using Washington’s veto power on the UN security council to quash resolutions calling for a ceasefire.

The Houthis are portraying themselves as one of the few forces in the Middle East willing to stand against Israel and its western allies in defence of the Palestinian cause. Aside from the Houthis and Hamas, the alliance also includes several Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, and the powerful Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

True global leadership at this moment means de-escalation and forging visions for a just future for all.

Without demanding a ceasefire in the immediate future, the putative US/UK commitment’s to peace rings hollow and feels more like it’s been overshadowed by their own and very real addictions to war.,

Any sane person would hear this.

Do most Americans realize how steeped in violence their country is?

A country beholden to its own violence’s is not limited to mass murderers.

How many of us have read the Creed of a United States Marine? “My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life,” it states, along with “my rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless.”

Maybe this makes sense as part of military indoctrination but, let’s face it, culturally, we are all expected to buy into this idea, and with interest.

The truth of the matter is that the US make a lot of war.

Military conflicts make up perhaps 93% of its history. Roughly a quarter of the country has lived only in a time of war. And within that history, American weapons are an industry, a mythology and identity simultaneously.

Why do they call armed, military helicopters “Apache” helicopters for goodness’ sake?

When will the US face the fact that it is a country baked in its own violence, much of it racist in intent and effect?  That reflects its own genocidal and racist past. If they were to be honest they would see that this dark heart of violence is not simply a partisan issue but is a much longer and more intimate part of its our own national tragedy.

THE BEADY EYE SAY’S: WARS DON’T USUALLY COME OUT OF NOWHERE.

17 Wednesday Jan 2024

Posted by in The cost of war., The new year 2024, The Obvious., The world to day., THIS IS THE STATE OF THE WORLD.  , War, Wars

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( Eight minute read) 

Endeavours to understand the nature of war, to formulate some theory of its causes, conduct, and prevention, are of great importance, for theory shapes human expectations and determines human behaviour.

If the source of a conflict doesn’t go away, however, there is every possibility that the conflict will erupt again, violently or otherwise.

However war is an extremely complex social phenomenon that cannot be explained by any single factor or through any single approach. The first thing to remember is that people have a penchant for violence so the causes of a war are usually numerous and can often be intertwined in a complicated way.

Although the theoretical understanding of the various causes of wars is developing well, and there are innumerable case studies of war and analyses of particular conflicts, systematic empirical work that analyzes the origins of wars across many cases is still relatively lacking.

A richer understanding of the origins of wars would help further advance the theory, and would help in sorting more frequent and important causes, from those which are less so and ultimately would help in developing policies aimed at avoiding the costs of conflict.

You could say that the above is a load of crap.  After all War is War and only stops when one side sumits to the other.   

Here is my theory. 

Wars in the main are caused by Inequality. 

Once the military function became differentiated and separated from civilian ones, a tension between the two became one of the most important issues of politics.

Why? 

Because the military strive for war, in which they attain greater resources and can satisfy their status seeking and, sometimes, also an aspiration for direct and full political power.

Explosion

It’s not World War III yet, but there are more wars raging across the globe today than there have been since 1945. Foreboding figures from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) reveal the number of people globally engaged in deadly conflict shot up a staggering 97 percent in 2022 – sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And since the October 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel, yet another major war to a growing list of 57 major and smaller conflicts.

As we begin 2024, if wars weren’t worrying enough, international storm clouds are coming with the US and the Uk Elections, both now engaging the Huti in Yemen, while the Libyan and Iran and Iraq are more and more likely to get involved in a widening the current war. 

For 16 years, Israel’s illegal blockade has made Gaza the world’s biggest open-air prison – the international community must act now to prevent it becoming a giant graveyard.

Decades of impunity and injustice and the unprecedented level of death and destruction of the current offensive will only result in further violence and instability in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

We are now looking at a potential expansion of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, which has already devastated much of the territory and forced 1.8 million people from their homes, killing at least 23,968 people, mostly women and children. As the world watches on helpless, because of American and British support.

Is there anything that you can do?  Yes boycott buying any Israel products.Members of the United Nations Security Council vote on a proposal to demand that Israel and Hamas allow aid access to the Gaza Strip - via land, sea and air routes - and set up U.N. monitoring of the humanitarian assistance delivered, during a meeting at the U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., December 22, 2023. REUTERS/David Dee Delgado

 WHAT CAN THE UNITED NATIONS DO? 

At the moment, there is a lot of talk about warfare—and very little about peace solutions.

Along the road to ending apartheid in South Africa the Security Council, in 1963, instituted a voluntary arms embargo against South Africa, and the General Assembly refused to accept the country’s credentials from 1970 to 1974. Following this ban, South Africa did not participate in further proceedings of the Assembly until the end of apartheid in 1994.

We may as well add the Israeli-Palestinian War (or genocide), since grounds were set in 1994 for a true Palestinian state. Israel first took over their water supply, then their best agricultural lands, and has been forcefully encroaching themselves further and further into Palestinian territory ever since.

Someone who did not condemn Hamas for the brutal massacre of 1,200 Israelis … but instead condemns Israel, a democratic country that protects its citizens, cannot serve in the UN and cannot enter Israel!”

At least 130 UNRWA staff have been killed in Israeli bombings throughout the war. This is the highest number of UN personnel killed in a conflict in the history of the organisation.

Why not suspend Israel? 

The United Nations General Assembly passed more resolutions critical of Israel than against all other nations combined in 2022, contributing to what observers call an ongoing lopsided focus on the Jewish state at the world body.

The UN Security Council is unable to act because of the lack of unanimity among its five veto-wielding permanent members, the Assembly has the power to make recommendations to the wider UN membership for collective measures to maintain or restore international peace and security. However, unlike Security Council resolutions, General Assembly resolutions are non-binding, meaning that countries are not obligated to implement them.

Unless they agree to their own expulsion or suspension, permanent Council members can only be removed through an amendment of the UN Charter, as set out in Chapter XVIII. 

Impose a comprehensive arms embargo on all parties to the conflict given that serious violations amounting to crimes under international law are being committed. States must refrain from supplying Israel with arms and military materiel, including related technologies, parts and components, technical assistance, training, financial or other assistance. They should also call on states supplying arms to Palestinian armed groups to refrain from doing so.

Pressure Israel to lift its illegal 16-year blockade of the Gaza strip which amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s population, is a war crime and is a key aspect of Israel’s apartheid system.

Wars have been a part of human history for thousands of years, and have become increasingly destructive as industrialization and technology have advanced.

Literature on war and its causes assumes security is the principal motive of states and insecurity the major cause of war.

Whatever the other reasons for a war may be, there is very often an economic motive underlying most conflicts, even if the stated aim of the war is presented to the public as something more noble.

When war breaks out the basic questions are however the same:

What are the interests of the actors involved? What positions do they hold?

Of course these can be more than complex when deep rooted religious beliefs are involved. They can lie dormant for decades, only to re-emerge in a flash at a later date. Nationalism in this context essentially means attempting to prove that your country is superior to another by violent subjugation.

This often takes the form of an invasion.

Related to nationalism is imperialism, which is built on the idea that conquering other countries is glorious and brings honor and esteem to the conqueror. Racism can also be linked to nationalism. Revenge also relates to nationalism, as the people of a country which has been wronged are motivated to fight back.

Of course, the points of view differ greatly. As long as opinions exist, there will always be conflict.

Most wars are fought with the intention of beating the enemy and effectively imposing peace on the victor’s terms. Unfortunately, this can lead to an endless chain of retaliatory wars being set in motion which is very difficult to stop.

Today none of these motives are effectively served by war – it is increasingly counterproductive – and that there is growing recognition of this political reality. In the modern world, where military aggression is more widely questioned, countries will often argue that they are fighting in a purely defensive capacity against an aggressor, or potential aggressor, and that their war is therefore a “just” war.

Of course, the viability of any solutions will depend on the course of the wars in the days and weeks ahead.

We have created Nato a war Pact disguised as a peace pact, with increased military preparedness may result in increased tensions and thus indirectly lead to the outbreak of war. This is why admitting the Ukraine into Nato will cause world war three.  

As technologies advance, wars can be fought increasingly with automated weaponry, such as drones and missiles, with less and less need for a traditional army. Cyber warfare is also on the rise.

Although industrialists in all the technologically advanced systems are undoubtedly influential in determining such factors as the level of armaments to be maintained, it is difficult to assume that their influence is or could be decisive when actual questions concerning war or peace are being decided by politicians. Attacking them before they inevitably attack us.

Consequently, although modern war technology depends heavily upon scientists and although many of them are employed by governments in work directly or indirectly concerned with this technology, scientists as a group are far from being wedded to war.

On the contrary, many of them are deeply concerned with the mass destruction made possible by science and participate in international pacifist movements.

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Finally if one looks at war from a philosophically point of view, how can one own what one did not create?

No human created the universe. How can human own parts of the universe?

The phenomenon of war must, therefore, be analyzed at the universal level.

Regional integration is an important advance toward reducing the incidence of war. Even if it were to become generally successful, however, regional integration would simply shift the problem of war to a different level: there would be fewer possibilities of war because interregional conflicts would be contained, but interregional conflicts could still give rise to wars of much greater scope and severity.

International law, although they differ fundamentally from municipal law because no sovereign exists who can enforce them. It concerns itself largely with two aspects of war: its legality and its regulation.

On multiple occasions that international humanitarian law was being violated in the war between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas.

Hence, what the procedures really offer is a means of slowing down the progression of a dispute toward war, giving reason a chance to prevail. 

We have Russia claiming that the Ukrainian state is an artificial entity,  China claiming that Twain is not a state but is part of China, and we have Israel a Western manufacturer state, denying statehood to Palestine.

The apapity of Americans (now living in the only world democracy that is unable to transfer power with an election) is going to face the amber of a civil war if Trump get elected or not elected at the end of the year. 

If individual states in competitive situations are governed by a short-term conception of their interests, acute conflicts between them will occur and will show a strong tendency to escalate as future wars caused by climate change, will be fought more often over fundamental essentials, such as water and food.

It is thus possible that international organizations can contribute to the prevention of wars by devising and institutionalizing alternative, peaceful techniques for the settlement of disputes and by persuading the states to use them.

The scope of this approach is limited, for states are notoriously reluctant to abide by impartial findings on matters they regard as being of vital importance.

War’s can only be abolished by a full-scale world government to the prevention and mitigation of war with all the means at their disposal. 

Nations have not managed to agree on an unequivocal definition of aggression, have not in practice accepted the principle that aggression must be acted against independently of the identity of the perpetrator, and, therefore, have not established the international collective security force.

If they were to establish such a force that concentrates upon forestalling violence by bringing to bear an overwhelmingly superior international force against any aggressor. It would not work without the use of nuclear weapons which might see the demise of the Human species and the end of wars. 

Ask yourself, looking at today’s conflicts across the world, is it more likely that that number grows or reduces?

What can be done?

Governments place sanctions, you can place #boycotts.  THERE ARE NO LAWS TO STOP YOU doing so.  

The photo released by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Jan. 14, 2024 Israeli troops conducting a military operation in Gaza Strip

Whether you like it or not the Gun rules the world and there are thousands to choose from,  Kalashnikov- MG24 – BREN-VICKER-THOMPSON-STEN – LEWIS  – LUGER- BERETTA -LUSSO to mention a few that have killed thousands all with nice names. 

ALL HUMAN COMMENTS APPRECIATED. ALL LIKE CLICKS AND ABUSE CHUCKED IN THE BIN

CONTACT: BOBDILLON33@GMAIL.COM  

THE BEADY EYE ASKS: WHY DO THE US SUPPORT ISRAEL?

11 Thursday Jan 2024

Posted by in American Cultures, CULTURES COLLIDE, Dehumanization., Donald Trump Presidency., Extermination., Uncategorized

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( Five minute read)

We have the spectral of Mr Antony J. Blinken the Secretary of State for the USA (the largest and once the most powerful military country in the world) running around the middle east unable to call for a cease fire in the current war Israel/Palestine.

Why?

Because, President Joe Biden’s promise for the US to “stand with Israel” continues a special relationship that dates back to 1948, when President Harry Truman became the first world leader to recognize the Jewish state, moments after its creation.

Even before 7 October, support for Israel among American Jews – who constitute the world’s second largest Jewish population after Israel – was shifting. At this point, more Americans, but not a majority, think Israel’s response has been appropriate.

The idea that of all nations in the world, Israel alone doesn’t have the right to respond in self-defense, of course is wrong, but as the saying goes two wrongs don’t make a right.

The question is why does the US support a country that is committing a genocide.

I believe this is because americans learned very few details about the role of racist violence in American history. They are not always familiar with the often coded language and imagery of antisemitism.

The answer lies in its history.

The USA is a country founded on immigration, so it has historical roots of support for Israel.The Israeli and U.S. flags are projected against the wall of the old city of Jerusalem during the visit of President Biden.

In our current age of unapologetic racism and resurgent authoritarianism, for dismantlers of democracy, there is no better exemplar than a Genocide.

The mechanics of Hitler’s rise are a particularly example.

Hitler had no blueprint for the Holocaust.

Nazis took inspiration from American racism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

He was a student of history and admired America’s rapid industrialization and growth, which he attributed to a vast, diverse continental empire and agricultural base. So Hitler’s plan was for Germany to emulate the United States.

What possessed a society of seemingly, sane, educated and cultured people to implement a policy of barbarism and depraved violence upon the Jews of Europe during World War II?

Hitler’s understanding of how the American republic came to industrialize and prosper through expulsion of indigenous people and, especially, through the institution of slavery, which is now understood to have been central to America’s economic development.

First by seizing large tracts of productive land by pushing the indigenous populations out. If those natives could not be pushed out, they were to be killed. And then slave labor was to be employed to produce the food necessary to support industrialization and militarization, just as the United States had done.

When Hitler praised American restrictions on naturalization, he had in mind the Immigration Act of 1924, which imposed national quotas and barred most Asian people altogether.

Commodification and suffering and forced labor of African-Americans is what made the United States powerful and rich.

Nazi ideology also embraced virulent European anti-semitism.

The kind of genocidal hatred that erupted in Germany had been seen before and has been seen since.

Why?

First, the very application of the term “genocide” is applied too slowly and cautiously when atrocities happen. Second, the international community fails to act effectively against genocides. Third, too few perpetrators are actually convicted of their crimes.

Seventy years after the UN Convention, genocide remains ever present in our global society. Now consider that only three have been legally recognised – and led to trials – under the convention:

The world watched in apparent indifference. Rwanda in 1994, Bosnia (and the 1995 Srebrenica massacre), and Cambodia under the 1975-9 Pol Pot regime. The widespread killing and displacement of Yazidi by IS and Rohingya in Myanmar and Darfur, are ongoing.

Add the Indonesian genocide of 1965-66 and the Guatemalan genocide of 1981-83, the Kurds in 1988-91 in Iraq, and by West Pakistan forces against Bangladeshis in 1971, the Tamils in Sri Lanka between 1983 and 2009, not to mention the Australia’s “stolen generations”, the Irish Famine that might fall under the UN definition is frighteningly long.

The US, for example, famously never officially recognised the 1915 Armenian genocide as one.

Only by stripping away its national regalia and comprehending its essential human form do we have any hope of vanquishing genocide.

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The “tyranny of hindsight”—the lordly perspective that reduces a complex, contingent sequence of events to an irreversible progression.

So Hitler’s model was in fact the U.S.A.

It goes without saying that he was an extreme narcissist lacking in empathy. a loner.

He had a Jewish grandfather; that he had encephalitis; that he contracted syphilis from a Jewish prostitute; that he blamed a Jewish doctor for his mother’s death; that he was missing a testicle;

Hundreds of thousands of Americans died fighting Nazi Germany. Still, bigotry toward Jews persisted, even toward Holocaust survivors.

These chilling points of contact are little more than footnotes to the history of Nazism.

But they tell us rather more about modern America.

Since Trump entered politics, he has repeatedly been compared to Hitler, not least by neo-Nazis.

What is worth pondering is how a demagogue of Hitler’s malign skill might more effectively exploit flaws in American democracy. He would certainly have at his disposal craven right-wing politicians who are worthy heirs to Hindenburg, He would also have millions of citizens who acquiesce in inconceivably potent networks of corporate surveillance and control.

The above however is not the only reason as such, it is only fair to my American readers to point out.

We certainly live in a VUVA world; Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous.

Undoubtedly our world is becoming increasingly digital and there is a blurring between the digital and non-digital world.

The excesses of social media and the impact that this has on people’s psychological wellbeing needs to be addressed.  (I think that psychology; understanding of people, their behaviour and how the mind functions, will be increasingly important.)

Desensitization is an unsettling phenomenon which stems from individuals refusing or being unable to react to or express emotion towards a certain situation. Through the click of a button on our device, we distance ourselves from the serious happenings of society.

Ours is a forgetful age. In an era of instant news, amnesia is baked in. And amnesia has consequences.

While it is vital to be aware of current events and their impacts, like the war in Ukraine and the current Israeli/Palestinian war, both are purposeless if we aren’t able to understand these events and empathize with the people involved.

We spend much of our lives on devices that are designed to need replacing every three years, accessing social media platforms that amplify the sense of a continuous present and an absent past. Everything feels unexpected, as if it is coming out of nowhere. Developments appear unconnected to the past, and indeed to each other. In the absence of a plausible historical narrative, people retreat into tribalism or conspiracy theories (perhaps both) to help them make sense of the pace of change.

The vast majority of people in human history have not shared our views of work, family, government, religion, sex, identity, or morality, no matter how universal or self-evident we may think they are.

They expose vulnerabilities in the national consciousness that:

All men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience.

With one in every ten people in Gava now killed the future of further any peace efforts with Arab nations could now be in doubt, as Israel continues to bomb the Gaza Strip in its effort to punish Hamas.

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Finally:

The spread of white-supremacist propaganda on the Internet. YouTube is a superb vehicle for the circulation of such content, its algorithms guiding users toward ever more inflammatory material.

Given its billion or so users, YouTube may be one of the most powerful radicalizing instruments of the 21st century.

The internet is a breeding ground for loners who have a “vague notion of being reserved for something else. Suicide bomber, Mass killer, may attempt to turn metaphor into reality.

He might be out there now, cloaked by the blue light of a computer screen, ready, waiting.

For me, this digital and data analytically world emphasises the important of social connections and networks. There will be a need for collaboration and for different ways of working.

Part of this will be reflected in the changing power dynamics. Organisations may operate in different ways. This includes social change, climate, and the balance that we want in our lives, simply because the repetition can be overwhelming. When things occur again and again, we become too-familiar with the situation, thus not treating it as important, unable to put intense situations into perspective.

Which inclines us to fawn over the future, and either patronize the past or ignore it altogether.

To sum up, as Albert Einstein said ‘learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. A person who never made a mistake, never tried anything new.

The question is, are we happy to live in a world that deliberately creates destitution for some?

Our technology does not help us here.

Now as ever, great-power politics will drive events, and international rivalries will be decided by the relative capacities of the competitors.

Memory, in contrast, should generate humility:

The acknowledgment of our past, with all its strengths and weaknesses, and the recognition that the reason we have the moral convictions we do, and the material advantages we do, is because of our ancestors.

As James Baldwin relentlessly pointed out, we are our history.

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

Contact: bobdillon33@gmail.com