A good part of EU’s 50bn euros will go directly to Zelensky and his circle of close aides and ministers to keep him in power.
So by hook or by crook, the EU got its funding for Ukraine agreed. But before you get too excited, perhaps it’s worth pondering the amount. A pathetic 12.5bn euros annually over four years, though finally it will be much much more.
Is this money really for Zelensky and his cabal to keep the war going though, or simply a massive bribe for him to pass most of it on, in order for him to stay in power? What is the West worried about with Zelensky leaving office too early, some astute analysts will no doubt ask.
From a military perspective it would be too little too late, with 400.000 dead or injured and 350,000 men fleeing conscription, and so it’s all destined for public services and what some EU apparatchiks are calling “keeping the lights on”.
But EU leaders should be aware that a good part of this ‘pocket money’ – probably at least half of it – will go directly to Zelensky and his circle of close aides and ministers whose only job is to keep him in power.
As president, he has control over the budgets of the government ministries including the finance ministry and it would be absurd to assume that most of this money will not be diverted in a regime which has redefined all scales of corruption and embezzlement.
Even the CIA chief Bill Mad Dog Burns had to fly in recently to Kiev to tell Zelensky personally to “not steal too much” from the next bundle which the Biden administration is expected to sign off in the coming weeks, which is expected to be around 65 billion dollars in military aid.
And so the Americans appear to be ready to continue to give the military kit, despite much of it, according to my own investigation is ending up on the black market in Libya, while the EU is happy to pay the bills of the government and salaries.
The Atlantic Council sums it up thus: “The EU hit the mark this time, showing Washington that Europe is doing its part”.
But doing what part exactly? The EU default position on Ukraine is to blindly follow the Biden administration and its fatalistic support of the Ukraine regime until the abyss approaches.
Indeed, most of last year Biden could only repeat the mantra over and over again “whatever it takes” and the EU followed, with many member states being devastated by the decision.
Germany’s economy is looking like a basket case while folks in the UK pay sky-high utility bills which in most cases look like a zero has been incongruously added by mistake.
Rojava/AANES has always been in a perilous situation, but in 2024 the autonomous region is especially threatened.
Its multi-ethnic army, the 100K strong Syrian Defense Forces (SDF), was sponsored by the USA to fight and win against the ISIS caliphate, eventually conquering their capital Raqqah and expelling them from the Deir ez Zor, a fairly oil rich Sunni Arab area on the Iraqi border.
Then president Donald Trump declared the US were only there for the oil, and the SDF is always accused of being just the police force of US looters, although it is over half composed of Arabs. The Coalition by now is a ‘de facto’ US force.
Surrounded by the Syrian state, Turkey, Russia, Islamic Militias (FSA/Nusra/HTS), and Iranian sworn enemies Rojava cannot afford to lose its marginal international and theoretical US protection. But the US is now under great pressure to pull out.
The US bases can only be supplied by air or across the Iraqi border, but that will make little sense as the US is finally “negotiating a phased withdrawal” from its illegal and unwanted Iraqi bases – leaving its small Syrian presence isolated.
The Syrian war is basically over and Syria is being recognised by the rest of the Arab world, yet the US persists with strangling the economy as well as Lebanon with the draconian ‘Caesar Sanctions’ regime. This makes no sense either.
Caesar Act Sanctions, a kind of ‘s0ur grapes punishment’, stupidly and cruelly condemning the Syrian population (and Lebanon) to continued blockade and penury, even as Syria is readmitted as an Arab partner State.
In addition due to US support and sponsorship of the atrocities of the Gaza genocide it’s bases in Syria and Iraq are regularily attacked by Iraqi Shia militia groups(IRI) supported by Iran, with a tit for tat bombing and drone battle that threatens a disastrous and unwanted major war everyone would lose (Feb 2024).
A US pullout may make sense but it would betray Rojava to genocidal neighbours, although the US has done this twice before, and allowed Turkey to invade. It would also empower a revival of the ISIS extremist guerillas, (who initially were promoted by the US and Turkey as a pawn against Syria).
Up to 70,000 of ISIS (Daesh) fighters and their families who were defeated by the SDF and the US led coalition are still imprisoned or held in the vast Al Hol camp, which would have to be opened and abandoned if the US left and international supplies were cut. Also half of the SDF could switch sides to the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) if the US stopped subsidizing their meager salaries.
Despite repeated efforts the Damascus ‘Arab only’ government refuses any autonomy for the Rojava/AANES area and promises a return to a new generation of Kurdish repression, with Turkey swiftly grabbing all the North East it can. Russia likely cannot now act as honest broker as it must placate Turkey due to the Ukraine war.
Iran is the rising power in the region, but is strongly against the Rojava Revolution for ideological reasons, having bombed Kurdish supporters in eastern Iraq in 2022 for backing the Iranian women’s uprising.
The only reason the US would stay is if it really cares about leaving chaos and an ISIS revival, or if it thinks its worth retaining an isolated target in the region to provoke Syria, Iraq and Iran.
So how can the invaluable Rojava Revolution survive? If it can keep US protection for a few more years the region may have totally changed as US hegemony disappears and regional alliances adapt.
One practical but unlikely outcome in the longer term might simply be a reconciliation with Damascus. Another might be for a new anti-ISIS coalition, without the US aggressor and western colonists, and guaranteed perhaps by BRICS, that is China and India in a multilateral future.
For the last few months, Turkey has been constantly attacking Northeast Syria which is the only Middle East area run by a democratic multi-ethnic and feminist Kurdish administration.
Thousands of people joined a demonstration in Tel Rifaat town of the Shehba Canton in protest at the Turkish state’s invasion and genocidal practices in northern Syria. 40% of the population of Efrin (Afrin) now survive in a semi no-man’s land, defended by the multi-ethnic SDF of AANES, after expulsion by the Turkish invasion, plantation and Turkification of their homes and properties
Currently, the world is distracted from the Israel-Gaza war and the crisis in the Red Sea. Turkey sees this as a good opportunity to escalate its aggression towards Syrian Kurds on the pretext of self-defense.
The recent upswing in the conflict started when nine Turkish soldiers were killed in clashes with Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters in northern Iraq. Ankara responded by increasing its relentless air strikes and illegal ground military operations against Kurdish guerilla hideouts in the mountainous Iraqi area, as well as in northeast Syria.
from thefreeonline on Feb 1, 2024 by Alessandro Ottolini at Antimilitaristes-MOC via La Directa— The Spanish police accuse two anti-militarists of insulting the army for throwing paint at a military tank
Once again, activists from Antimilitaristes-MOC showed their rejection of the culture of war and violence that the institutions of the Spanish State try to normalize among the younger public.
On December 26, they carried out a non-violent direct action at ExpoJove. A “clown army” threw paint on an armored combat vehicle, while holding posters with anti-militarist messages, while insulting the second deputy mayor of Valencia, Juan Manuel Bádenas Carpio (Vox), and his companions.
At the end of the action, the Local Police identified the activists and reported them to the government delegation in Valencia for “defacing public property”.
Two days later, the Provincial Information Brigade of the Spanish National Police arrested them, under the accusation of “damage” to the combat vehicle and “serious insults against the Army”.
The MOC explains that, the day after the action, they received a phone call from the National Police “demanding that we present ourselves the next day at the police station in Sapadors (Valencia), without further explanation.
After insisting, we were informed that it was an ‘arrest’ and ‘release’ procedure. We suffered the typical humiliating ritual of an arrest.”
The charges brought by the Provincial Information Brigade number 5 are for alleged criminal damage (estimated to be greater than 400 euros); and an alleged crime of insulting the military organization, contained in article 37 of the Penal Code.
Both crimes are punishable by between 8 and 12 months in prison and, in the case of aggravated damages for having acted against a war machine, by between 2 and 4 years in prison.
¿Está viva esta pobre criatura? No puedo ni imaginar el dolor que ha pasado y que estará pasando… ¿Cómo se repara un daño de esa magnitud? Estoy destrozada, me siento muy impotente al ver esto 😭
TRANSLATION @DaniMayakovski · – This is the effect of the white phosphorus that the Zionists use against Palestinian children; the phosphorus continues to burn on human skin, producing burns that can even corrode bones. This is what the West supports, genocidaires who burn children alive.
TRANSLATION Elizabeth ۞ Feb 3, 2024 @LorySpells/ Replying to @DaniMayakovski Is this poor creature alive? I can’t even imagine the pain that has happened and will be happening… How do you repair damage of that magnitude? I’m devastated, I feel very helpless seeing this.
REPLYING TO ELIZABETH@DaniMayakovski No, unfortunately she could not overcome the serious burns, her name was Luai and she was 5 years old, but the Palestinian doctors had hardly any resources, not even anesthesia.
(231025) — GAZA, Oct. 25, 2023 (Xinhua) — Palestinians are seen on a street after Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City, on Oct. 25, 2023. The death toll of Palestinians from Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip has risen to 6,546, said the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza Strip on Wednesday. Meanwhile, 17,439 Palestinians were wounded in the coastal enclave, the ministry said in a statement. (Photo by Yasser Qudih/Xinhua)
‘Strategic error’: Iran condemns US attacks on Iraq, Syria
US President Joe Biden said the strikes of sovereign countries, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Yemen, ‘will continue at times and places of our choosing’ [File: Kade Bise/ US Department of Defense/ AFP]
There is a great danger that IRI responses may kill more US troops and spark more escalation
“At least 16 people have been killed in U.S. retaliatory strikes in Iraq, the government said, condemning the “new aggression against” its sovereignty. Civilians were among the fatalities, and 25 people were wounded in the bombings that targeted both civilian and security areas, a government spokesperson said.“South Front
On Friday, Syrian state media said that an “American aggression” on a number of sites in Syria’s desert areas and the Syrian and Iraqi border resulted in a number of casualties and injuries
Iran says the attacks by the United States inside Iraq and Syria are a “strategic error” that will only add to tensions and instability in the Middle East heightened by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Most western media sites suppressed the news of the US killings, merely asserting an anonymous official has ‘hinted’ at a ‘deescalation.
Iran says the attacks by the United States inside Iraq and Syria are a “strategic error” that will only add to tensions and instability in the Middle East heightened by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
16 personas murieron y otras 25 resultaron heridas anoche en el bombardeo estadounidense contra las ciudades de Akashat y Qa'im, en Irak.
En 2021, el parlamento iraquí exigió a EEUU que se marchase y dejara inmediatamente sus bases de ocupación en el norte del pais desde donde… pic.twitter.com/zg2m7ecjDA
Iraqi authorities say 16 people have been killed anbd 25 wounded including civilians in strikes near the Syrian border.
Now there’s a cascade of condemnations from Iraqi politicians and militias accusing the US of “aggression”, insisting their country is not “an arena for settling scores”.
Despite the heavy death toll, the U.S. strikes failed to deter Iranian-backed forces. Just minutes after the strikes, there were reports of a rocket attack on the Conoco gas plant in Syria’s Deir Ezzor, which hosts a number of U.S. troops.South Front
The US forces launched a wave of air strikes against Iranian-backed fighters in Iraq and Syria on Friday in retaliation for a drone attack in Jordan that killed three American soldiers on Sunday.
Iraq warns of disastrous consequences for region after US strikes
The next day, the IRI announced that it had targeted the Harir Air Base in the northern Iraqi autonomous region of Kurdistan with a suicide drone and released video footage of the attack. It also vowed that its military campaign against U.S. forces will go on.South Front
The IRI carried out more than a hundred attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria since the outbreak of the war in Gaza and the unwavering support by Washington for it.
The U.S. vowed that strikes on Iranian-backed forces will continue. This will likely only lead to more escalation in Iraq, Syria and other parts of the Middle East.
IRAN REACTION
“The return of stability and security to the region cannot be imagined but through focusing on the root cause of the crisis and resolving it,” it said.The US has operated military bases around the Middle East for decades. There are about 30,000 US soldiers scattered across the region. In addition, since the Gaza war began in October, the US has temporarily sent thousands of additional troops to the region, including on warships. Friday’s strikes by the US appeared to stop short of directly targeting Iran or senior leaders of the Iranian army within its borders. Iran has denied it was behind the Jordan attack.
In a statement on Saturday, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said the US attacks were a “violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and Syria, international law, and a clear violation of the United Nations Charter”.“The attacks merely support the goals of the Zionist regime. Such attacks increasingly involve the US government in the region and overshadow the crimes of the Zionist regime in Gaza,” it said, referring to Israel.
“The continuation of such adventures is a threat to regional and international peace and security,” it added, urging the United Nations Security Council and the international community to prevent the expansion of the crisis.The Iranian statement said the “roots of the tension and crisis in the region go back to the occupation by the Israeli regime and the continuation of this regime’s military operations in Gaza and the genocide of the Palestinians with the unlimited support of the US”.
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 02.02.2024 Attacking Iran would be a catastrophic mistake for Washington, as the US is too internally weak to wage a new major in the Middle East, University of Tehran professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi told Sputnik’s New Rules podcast. US officials have reportedly signaled that plans have been approved for […]
The instructive cases of Germany and Switzerland When the West nails the Israeli coffin of the Palestinian people! by Yorgos Mitralias First the facts: UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) supports almost 4 million Palestinian refugees, running their schools and hospitals and providing them with drinking water and food. In Gaza alone, […]
The Free 