Mass Murder and Other Inequalities

Mass Murder in Lebanon

Writing for the World Socialist Web Site, Andre Damon today notes Israel’s current mass killing over the past few days of Lebanese citizens (approaching, I would estimate 1,000 dead and 4,000 injured) has far outstripped the intensity of Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon, during which 1,000 people were killed during an entire month.

Ostensibly, this program of mass murder is intended to make the north of Israel safe for a return to that territory of previously evacuated Israeli citizens. But others see it as the inevitable outreach of Zionists towards a Greater Israel project carried out with the full kowledge and complicity of the US, UK and other Western powers. Amichai Chikli, Israel’s Minister of Diaspora and Combating Antisemitism has called for Israel to carry out a land grab in Southern Lebanon:

“Lebanon, even though it has a flag and even though it has political institutions, does not meet the definition of a country,” he said. “The drawing lines of Sykes and Picot, which were based on the distribution of areas of influence and resources between Great Britain and France, did not survive the test of time.”

We might consider whether much the same could be said of the apartheid State of Israel itself, whose very foundation as one of genocide radically undercuts and delegitimizes the premises on which the UN originally endorsed the foundation of the state of Israel.

Damon summarizes the overall pattern:

“US imperialism sees this war as one front in a global struggle targeting Russia and China, aimed at securing US domination all over the globe”.

I notice that Alastsair Crooke, a significant, independent and expert source on the Middle East crisis insists that Hezbollah has been only relatively lightly impacted by the crisis so far, despite appearances. This is because Israel’s “pager murders“ last week (37 killed; well over 3,000 injured, many of them blinded) - a very serious violation of international law - mainly impacted citizens, hospital staff, administrators, children, but not fighters who do not typically use pagers and who have also been trained to operate without electronic communications.

Hezbollah territory is mountainous and forested, very different from that of Gaza. Its weapons are deeply buried and are fired through silos. Israeli control over information space right now is total but there are reports, nonetheless, of significant damage being caused by Hezbollah rockets some thirty miles deep into Israel, particularly impacting the port city of Haifa, which is the third most populous city of Israel. Israeli sources have claimed that a million Israelis have needed to seek safety in shelters.

As the world increasingly anticipates that Israel will follow up its electronic terrorism and air assaults with a ground invasion, Jeremy Scahill and Murtza Hussein recently considered the strength of Hezbollah:

“Hezbollah is considered the most powerful non-state military force in the world, with an estimated stockpile of between 150,000 and 200,000 short and long-range missiles, a rapidly expanding fleet of unmanned vehicles, an advanced network of tunnels and underground facilities, and tens of thousands of trained fighters”. 

Hezbollah likely has access to any technology that Iran possesses and is now manufacturing its own drones. It has so far been pulling its punches. The Iranian president, meanwhile, who represents the reformist bloc inside Iran, has said that Iran would deescalate in the region if the U.S. also tempered its support for Israel. While such coolness (meekness?) in the face of outrageous provocation may be admirable, it does not augur well if it indicates to Israel and the West that Iran is essentially a walkover that still pathetically hopes against hope that it can one day overcome Western sanctions agression and Western derision of Iran.

In the light of the scale of “excess deaths” in Gaza and Lebanon (well over 200,000 by now, in my estimation, and following Lancet style methodology) and many more hundreds of thousands wounded, one may wonder whether the time for coolness has now reached the point of expiry.

Russian Wild West Capitalism

Battle of the Bakalchuks: an off-beat story from The Bell, perhaps, that is a healthy reminder that however much right Russia has in defense of its national security against NATO aggression, there is a version of capitalism (should we call it “post-Soviet capitalism”?) alive in the Russian Federation that is probably every bit as problematic as Western monopoly capitalism. It certainly has its Wild West features.

We saw it with Yevgeny Prigozhin; now we see it in the dispute before former spouses Vladislav Bakalchuk and Tatyana Bakalchuk, the founders of online marketplace, Wildberries, in an involved narrative that somehow connects with the merger of Wildberries with the Russ Group (outdoor advertising), and the involvement of the Bakalchuks’ patrons - none other than the Head of the Chechen republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, and Dageston billionaire senator Suleiman Kerimov. The squabble, whose details I will not go into here, erupted into a fatal gunfight close to the Kremlin when Vladislav and his men stormed into the Wildberries headquarters, and from which he has so far walked free.

Interestingly and worryingly, this story has connections with the much more important theme of the BRICS and the possibilities for de-dollarization of the global economy which will form one of the central foci of attention in Kazan next month. According to The Bell report, Putin was presented with the idea that a merger between Wildberries and Russ would enable the creation of a new international payment system, based in rubles and that would bypass SWIFT. He was advised that the company would be a “strong rival” to Google and Amazon, capable of boosting Russia’s GDP by 1.5%.

“Putin approved the idea and put his economic aide, Maxim Oreshkin, on the case. Vladislav Bakalchuk was against the deal from the start, but had a weak hand. He owned just 1% of Wildberries and his other company, BV Development had lost contracts for the construction of 32 Wildberries and was facing multibillion-ruble fines for failure to meet contractual obligations”. 

Russian Trade with Africa

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the trade turnover between Russia and African countries had increased by almost 35% in the first half of 2023 despite international sanctions. Putin has promised to double trade with African states within five years, in part through deals worth $40 billion in the construction and sale of nuclear power plants and fighter jets. Russia’s arms exporter Rosoboronexport has outlined plans for joint ventures regarding military equipment with the continent. Rosoboronexport has been advancing multiple cooperation projects with African countries, focusing on the licensed production of small arms, ammunition, armoured vehicles, and fast combat boats. The combined share of Middle Eastern and African countries in Rosoboronexport’s order portfolio exceeds 50%, which translates to over $25 billion. Over 40 African nations are actively engaged in military-technical collaboration with Russia. African countries bought more than 30% of the weapons systems exported by Russia in 2023. Russia has overtaken China as the leading arms seller in sub-Saharan Africa, with market share growing to 26% as of 2022. Other Russian companies with significant operations in Africa include Alrosa, which operates diamond projects in Angola and is exploring in Zimbabwe; Rusal, which mines bauxite in Guinea; and Rosatom, which is building a nuclear power plant in Egypt.

“According to the African Development Bank, Africa’s economies are growing faster than those of any other continent. Nearly half of African countries are now classified as middle-income countries, the number of Africans living below the poverty line fell to 39 per cent in 2023 as compared to 51 per cent in 2021, and around 380 million of Africa’s 1.4 billion people are now earning good incomes – rising consumerism – that makes trade profitable.”

Chinese Trade with Mexico

Naked Capitalism today carries a story on China’s enhanced trade with Mexico. Mexico is the US’ biggest trading partner, as the volume of goods the US buys from its southern neighbour has surged past those of China and Canada. Exports to the US from Mexico have increased 20 percent-plus annually between 2020 and mid-2024 while exports from China have steadily fallen. Yet bilateral trade between Mexico and China has increased 12.3% year over year in the first half of 2024.

China is Mexico’s second most important trading partner, accounting for 20% of the North American country’s total imports, up from 15% in 2015. The trade volume between China and Mexico exceeded $100 billion for the first time last year. Most of that consists of Chinese imports flowing into Mexico, many of which are then used to assemble products destined for the US market. In July, for example, international sales from Mexico to China were US$649M, while international purchases reached US$11.4B. Mexican imports of Chinese goods are up roughly 100% in the npast ten years and more than 500% since 2006.

Chinese companies seek advantage in the US nearshoring strategy by setting up shop in Mexico. The sectors most affected include photovoltaic energy, 5G communications, aerospace technology and biomedicine. Globally, Mexico is the tenth largest destination for Chinese exports, representing 2.4% of the total. Mexico’s exports to the US last year surpassed China’s for the first time in two decades. For every 1 percent increase in Mexico’s exports to the US, Mexico’s imports from China increased by 1.06 percent.

In Latin America, Mexico is now the main market for China, even surpassing China’s fellow BRICS member Brazil. There is a growing Mexican demand for Chinese-made electronic products, mobile phones and, most recently, automobiles. Mexico is now the second largest market for Chinese automobiles worldwide, behind only Russia. 20 percent of light vehicles sold last year in Mexico were imported from China.

Regime-Changing Iran

Grayzone reporters Klarenberg and Blumenthal outline an initiative by Carl Gershman, former director of the NED, to impose radical leadership on the remnants of Iran’s protest movement against the mandatory hijab, in order to topple the government of Iran. Gershman privately plotted to channel US State Department resources into the construction of an “Iran Freedom Coalition” composed of pro-Western Iranian activists and US neoconservative operatives. In the name of women’s issues fronted by the IFC-coopted Women, Life, Freedom Movement, this organization sought to impose an exiled leadership over the grassroots Iranian opposition which is directed and sponsored by the most belligerent elements in Washington. The Freedom Coalition’s Iranian members consist heavily of US government-sponsored cultural figures and staffers at interventionist Western think tanks like the Tony Blair Institute. The 2022 protests for women’s rights were hijacked by the Freedom Coalition. The project benefited from $55 million of State Department funds.

Extraordinary Global Inequality: Why We Need The Revolution Now

The potential for a transformation of the global order that is represented by the BRICS members is significantly undermined by growing global economic inequality. Another way of saying this is that if the BRICS transformation is for real we have to see BRICS members engage in serious conversation about issues of gross if not obscene inequality between human beings as well as inequalities between nations.

So far, they haven’t.

For Common Dreams, Jake Johnson addresses an Oxfam report that shows that the 'Global Oligarchy' Reigns as Top 1% Controls More Wealth Than Bottom 95% of Humanity. The fortune controlled by the top 1% is now larger than the collective wealth of the bottom 95%. A small number of corporations dominate key sectors: e.g. early half of the global seed market is controlled by just two corporations, Bayer and Corteva; three U.S.-based financial behemoths—Blackrock, State Street, and Vanguard—oversee nearly 20% of the world's investable assets, around $20 trillion. An increasing number of corporations are controlled by billionaires: a billionaire either heads or is the top shareholder of more than a third of the world's leading 50 corporations.

"The movement toward global oligarchy ultimately perpetuates neocolonial relationships, shaping policy in ways that further increase the wealth of ultrarich individuals, mostly in the Global North, at the expense of the Global South."