Devious US Intention and Incompetence Always Good for Genocide
Help Suffering Rich White Folk!
Possibly too cowardly, incompetent and impervious to stop genocide in Israel, fascist Trump is making up other genocides to blame people for.
The Hill reports that Trump today used South African President Cyril Ramaphosa as his foil, basing his pro-Musk “evidence” on a video of incendiary remarks from South African politicians though not, as Trump falsely claimed, “officials.” The Associated Press has characterized any claim of “systematic” killings of white farmers in South Africa as “baseless.” Crime statistics for 2024 indicate that less than 1 percent of nationwide murders were on farms. Trump’s main beef, following the lead of Elon Musk (now racing home to Tesla-land to try and save his business empire from ultimate decimation by China) is recent passage of a law, still subject to judicial review, that enables expropriation of land. But the law is subject to judicial review, and is in any case quite comparable to U.S. federal government’s legal right to take over private property under eminent domain in the US
Trump wants people to believe that it is white people who now face unfair discrimination, in part because of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
While Trump suspended the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program by executive order on his first day back in office, is removing protections allowed by the Biden Administration for Venezuelan refugees, and is well on the way to deporting tens if not hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants from the US, some to inhumane conditions in prisons of countries other than those from which they originated, his administration’s has taken a decision to admit a group of Afrikaners — white South Africans, primarily farmers and their families — as refugees.
At home, Trump is pressing ahead with generous tax cuts for the rich that he introduced in his first term while, by reducing Medicaid, he will likely deprive 100,000 Americans of something resembling decent healthcare.
False on Israel
Kit Klarenberg for Mint Press News (Klarenberg) suspects that stories of Trump distsancing himself from Netanyahu are grotesque theatre, even though until a few days ago it was safely and reasonably assumed he and Netanyahu were joined at the hip.
Trump’s declaration of a cease-fire with Ansar Allah over Houthi attacks on US shipping, a step taken without consultation with Israel; Trump’s recent tour of the Middle East, which did not include Israel; his negotiation without Israeli involvement, of the release of the last living U.S. hostage held by Hamas; the convening of direct peace talks with Hamas; the holding of peace talks with Iran to the exclusion of Israel; and the depoliticization of the goal of normalization of all Arab countries with Israel in favor of special deals with Arab countries that favor the US - have all suggested that Trump might actually be putting as much blue water between himself and Netanyahu as possible.
As on previous occasions of comparable tension between Israel and the US, though, U.S. financial and military aid has continued unabated, if not increased. There may be a shift underway in U.S. foreign policy, one that aims to counter China’s rising global influence, even at the expense of a positive US outcome on other conflicts that do not involve China. Something along these lines may have been at play in the US attempt to broker a peace deal between India and Pakistan, where India is principally an ally of the US, and China is Pakistan’s principal ally - a peace deal, by the way, that India appears to very much resent.
For Trump, selling F-25s is far more important than Israeli mass murder of Palestinians.
“If nuclear negotiations succeed, Trump will likely seek to open Iranian markets to U.S. firms too. Israel doesn’t want this either. Trump is showing Netanyahu how much Israel needs the U.S., not the other way around.”
Meantime the genocide is depleting international support for both Israel and for the West which has connived with it. Condemnations at this very late stage - possibly far too late to make a difference - from Britain, France and Canada, and Britain’s cessaton of free trade talks with Israel are guaranteed to provoke extreme nausea. Global repulsion against Israel and the West’s support of Israel has greatly enhanced the soft power of China, Iran and Russia to whom increasingly the Global South looks for leadership.
Klarenberg’s sources do not expect a fundamental rift between Israel and the US, and do expect that Washington will do everything in its power to stop Muslim countries from drifting towards China. Too late in the case of Iran, of course, which supplies China with a hefty proportion of all of China’s energy requirements.
“Today, Israel and its lobbying network are pushing for another major conflict in the Middle East—this time with Iran. In April, The New York Times, citing anonymous briefings, revealed that Tel Aviv had drawn up detailed plans for an attack on the Islamic Republic that would have required U.S. support—plans that were reportedly waved off by Trump. Israeli officials were said to be furious over the leak, with one calling it “one of the most dangerous leaks in Israel’s history.”
The reportedly positive progress of nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran has suggested to some that Trump and his team are in fact determined to avoid war, mainly because (1) they suspect that Iran is far stronger than has previously been assumed - a September 2004 report from the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) claimed that it would take “five minutes or less” for Iran’s ballistic and hypersonic missiles to reach most U.S. military bases in the Middle East and obliterate them; (2) further, indirect, evidence of this has been demonstrated by Houthi success in its resilience against US attacks prior to the ceasefire requested by Trump; and (3) because they consider China a far greater threat to US interests.
Evil Intent on Iran
For the Grayzone, on the other hand, Max Blumenthal (Blumenthal) reports on conversations he has had with Iranians close to the US-Iran negotiations. These find the Trump team to be “dithering, divided, distracted by other conflicts, and incapable of holding to a consistent position…..and defaulting toward the hardline Israeli position which rejects all uranium enrichment, even for civilian purposes, violating a right Tehran considers sacrosanct.”
Blumenthal’s sources suspect an ulterior US motive of exploiting the meetings in Oman as a instrument for generating instability to weaken Iran’s economy and foment social strife. The talks were entered into under the duress of a two-month “or else” ultimatum from Trump; B-2 bombers in Diego Garcia; severe setbacks to Iranian allies Hamas and Hezbollah inm Israel, Lebanon and Syria; threats of more Israeli retaliation for last year’s successful Iranian strikes on Israeli military assets.
Although the American delegation has acted pacifically in Oman, during the talks themselves, they typically issue bellicose statements on their return to Washington. Klarenberg’s Iranian sources suspected that Steve Witkoff was kowtowing to Israeli assets like the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and its top donor, Miriam Adelson.m They found Witkoff distracted by other diplomatic assignments and were especially concerned by an apparent power struggle between Witkoff and Rubio which would prevent Trump’s team from reaching a consensus on the nuclear issue. Witkoff had reneged on his promise to use the release of Alexander as a step towards a ceasefire, instead allowing Israel to slaughter hundreds of civilians in the immediate aftermath of the release.
Negotiators were dismayed by Witkoff’s statement this week that the US has “one very, very clear red line, and that is enrichment. We cannot allow even 1% of an enrichment capability.” In fact, relatively high enrichment (short of that needed to make a bomb) enables many lifesaving products from advancements in radiotherapy to the production of anti-cancer drugs to the sterilization of medical devices and protection of agriculture.
US-induced uncertainties play havoc with the value of Iran’s currency and with the price of oil, and perhaps that is the intention.
“The American president’s ability to manipulate financial markets both inside and outside Iran with his bluster has contributed to a sense that entering the negotiations have weakened Iran’s political position. Meanwhile, Trump’s crude insults to Iran’s sense of national honor and sovereignty have disrupted whatever goodwill existed when talks began.”
In Riyadh, Trump went out of his way to try to poison relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, sister members of the BRICS, and which have recently reestablished harmonious diplomacy.
Failure on Ukraine
Following the Trump-Putin phone-call last Monday, there is far less talk of ceasefires from Trump; nor even of how a direct meeting between Trump and Putin will solve all possible problems.
Trump now appears to be saying that Russia and Ukraine will just have to sort it out.
For the moment, it appears that weapons and intelligence continue to flow to Kiev from the US, but it is not at all certain that this will be sustained. Increasingly, it seems possible that for Trump, a normalization of relations with Russis would be more welcome and more advantageous than the US continuing to prop up Ukraine against an almost certain military defeat.
In the meantime, Europe appears set to continue the conflict, with a 17th packet of sanctions from the European Commission whose main purposes, if approved, will be (1) to harm Russia’s shadow fleet (a measure that in itself may easily trigger World War 3 if it leads to reckless attempts to seize or to detain ships and crews); (2) to punish clients (principally China and India) who purchase Russian energy products with sanctions on their trade with the West - a measure they are certain to reject, very likely with the addition of their own sanctions and tariffs, leading to further inflationary pressure in the US; (3) to reduce the oil price cap - a mechanism that has already failed to have the anticipated effect - from $60 to $40 a barrel.
If the US does not introduce its own new packet of sanctions, any anticipated effect of the European sanctions packet will be further reduced, and even if the US does introduce its own packet, it is difficult to imagine it will be nearly as fearsome to Russia as the West likes to believe.
Meanwhile (4), although it is nothing directly connected with the issue of sanctions, Europe, this time under the leadership of Macron, may press the advantage it believes it has gained through the presidential election of Nicușor Dan in Romania (a victory to which France contributed, and the ultimate result of an EU-manouvered cancellation of the first round of elections last year that would have almost certainly yielded a candidate, Georgescu, who would have discontinued the Ukraine Project that Romania has been fighting on behalf of the EU). Dan is very pro-EU and therefore very pro-Ukraine. His victory will be the green light for completion of a new $2.7 billion NATO naval base that will expand the Romanian Air Force 57th Air Base Mihail Kogălniceanu, located close to the Black Sea port city of Constanța.
The new facility will have a perimeter of almost 20 miles, cover around 11 square miles, and will be home to some 10,000 NATO personnel and their families.
Macron may aim to use Dan’s electoral victory to advance French military presence in Romania and, in particular, for the passage of French troops into Ukraine with a view to holding Odessa and perhaps taking more of Western Ukraine in the event of a collapse of the regime under the force of Russia continuing its offensive this summer.
Macron may also use Romania as a means of placing pressure on Moldova and Transnistria that will be unwelcome to Russia.
The French president has the potential to revitalize a 1930s alliance or understanding of sorts between France, Albania, Greece and the Balkan states. In doing so, he could alienate both Italy’s premier Meloni, who dislikes Macron and who seeks to reinforce Italian good relations across southern Europe, and Germany which, under Chancellor Merz, may regards revanchism (literally and metaphorically) as the Holy Grail to a restoration of German leadership of Europe.
Denmark, as though determined to confirm what Putin calls the idiocy of European leadership, has promised a further $632 million in military aid to Ukraine.