June 13, 2024

List of Articles 6/13/24

US & Israel behave like mobsters to avoid the Law

The No-Rules International Order

Vijay Prashad

America's Iron Triangle uses endless wars for endless profits

To Abolish War We Must Transcend Exploitative Interests

Robert C. Koehler      Common Dreams

Doomsday for the Rich Means Underground Shelters

Want to Know

Small Island States Press for Global Financial Reform, Tired of Being 'Serfs'

Dawn Clancy    PassBlue

The petrodollar ended on June 9th; Sauds no longer ally w. U.S.

Eric Zuesse

Copilot AI Compares the UN Charter to the Earth Constitution

Roger Kotila 

US & Israel behave like mobsters to avoid the Law

The No-Rules International Order

Vijay Prashad

EXCERPTS

Israel’s massacre on the tent camp in Rafah is just the latest. For decades now, Tel Aviv – like Washington – has defied any attempt to apply international humanitarian law to its actions.

The “rules-based international order” has always provided immunity for the United States and its close allies, an immunity whose hypocrisy has increasingly been revealed. It is this double-standard that has provoked the collapse of the U.S.-driven world order.

Neither Israel nor the United States are signatories to the 2002 Rome Statute, which established the ICC. Rather than sign the statute, the U.S. Congress passed the American Service-Members’ Protection Act — known informally as the “Hague Invasion Act” — which legally authorises the U.S. government to “use all means necessary” to protect its troops from ICC prosecutors.

... The Guardian – in collaboration with other periodicals – published an investigation that revealed Israel’s use of “intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear, and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries.”

...Yossi Cohen, the former head of Israel’s spy agency, Mossad, personally harassed and threatened Bensouda (Khan’s predecessor), warning her, “You don’t want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family.”     READ MORE

America's Iron Triangle uses endless wars for endless profits

To Abolish War We Must Transcend Exploitative Interests

Robert C. Koehler     Common Dreams

EXCERPTS

In my lifetime, things have changed significantly, at least from the point of view of the United States, the world’s primary military power (at least for now). While war is bloodier and more devastating than it’s ever been, it no longer has much to do with winning and losing—at least from the U.S. point of view, which has basically “lost” (whatever that means) every war it has started since the Vietnam era. And that hasn’t seemed to matter. Winning isn’t really the point anymore, at least from the point of view of the moneyed interests of war. What matters is waging it—that is to say, what matters is keeping the profits flowing.

That is to say, the American public’s antiwar cynicism after Vietnam was now just more wreckage to be found on the Highway of Death. War is good again in America! We no longer have to be content simply arming contras and fighting proxy wars. We can get back to the real deal. The military-industrial complex, which was born in the wake of World War II, has returned, front and center.

And that’s where we’re at today. As David Vine and Theresa Arriola write:

Those two forces, the military and the industrial, united with Congress to form an unholy “Iron Triangle...” To this day those three have remained the heart of the MIC, locked in a self-perpetuating cycle of legalized corruption (that also features all too many illegalities).

The basic system works like this: First, Congress takes exorbitant sums of money from us taxpayers every year and gives it to the Pentagon. Second, the Pentagon, at Congress’ direction, turns huge chunks of that money over to weapons makers and other corporations via all too lucrative contracts, gifting them tens of billions of dollars in profits. Third, those contractors then use a portion of the profits to lobby Congress for yet more Pentagon contracts, which Congress is generally thrilled to provide, perpetuating a seemingly endless cycle.

This is the secret context of war—at least American war. The context is hidden behind the enormously effective public relations of war, whose headline slogans over the past few decades have mutated from “war on terror” and “axis of evil” to “Israel has a right to defend itself”—turning thousands and, ultimately, millions of deaths (deaths of civilians, deaths of children) into abstractions: collateral damage. We had no choice.  READ MORE

Doomsday for the Rich Means Underground Shelters

Want to Know

EXCERPTS

Doomsday prepping: Inside elite underground survival bunker  February 19, 2024, NewsNation

"From everyday Americans to celebrities, doomsday preppers are stocking up for fears of the end of the world, nuclear war, a major economic collapse or World War III. Now, real estate speculators say there are plenty of people concerned about the future to buy properties in bunker communities."

From luxury bunkers to tactical vehicles, the ultra-rich are preparing for the Big One - March 9, 2024, CBC News

In December, Wired magazine revealed that Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta and one of the richest individuals on the planet, was building a $100-million US compound in Hawaii. The compound includes a bunker — 5,000 square feet, to be specific, with concrete walls and an escape hatch. What does this tell us? It's a sign that at least some of the ultra-rich are anxious about global events and are making contingency plans for the Big One — whatever form that may take. 

World's billionaires are building bunkers and assembling fortresses outside their mansions - January 21, 2024, Daily Mail (One of the UK's Leading Newspapers)

'Doomsday prepping' used to be seen as a hobby relegated to the paranoid fringe — but ordinary Americans spent a staggering $11 billion on survival items, just last year, from April 2022 to April 2023. ... Last year, the nonprofit coalition of physicists and other researchers behind Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set their Doomsday Clock 90 seconds to midnight: the closest humanity has been to doom in the clock's 76 year history. READ MORE

Small Island States Press for Global Financial Reform, Tired of Being 'Serfs'

Dawn Clancy     PassBlue

EXCERPTS

Hosted by the American University of Antigua from May 27-30, the conference — also called SIDS4 — presented a series of dialogues, panels and buffet of side events to address the unique sustainable development challenges of the world’s 37 small island developing states face from, most notably, the crippling impacts of climate change and the burden of managing unsustainable levels of debt.

The SIDS community of 37 UN member states is a considerable voting bloc in the UN General Assembly, although not a monolith. It represents three regions: the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and South China Sea; the Caribbean; and the Pacific. SIDS’ total population is approximately 65 million, roughly the same as South Africa, and it is spread across 1,000 distinct islands. They account for less than one percent of the world’s total population, around eight billion.

Yet, SIDS sit on the edge of the expanding global climate crisis even though they contribute only 1 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. The top three contributors in 2022 were China, at roughly 30 percent; the United States, at 14 percent; and India, 8 percent. SIDS countries are consistently vulnerable to extreme weather events. Dorian, a category-five hurricane that devastated the Bahamas in 2019, for example, caused billions of dollars in damages. READ MORE

The petrodollar ended on June 9th; Sauds no longer ally w. U.S.

Eric Zuesse

“U.S.-Saudi Petrodollar Pact Ends after 50 Years”

 11 June 2024, analysis by Paul Hoffman:

The 50-year-old petrodollar agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia was just allowed to expire. The term “petrodollar” refers to the U.S. dollar’s role as the currency used for crude oil transactions on the world market. This arrangement has its roots in the 1970s when the United States and Saudi Arabia struck a deal shortly after the U.S. went off the gold standard that would go on to have far-reaching consequences for the global economy. In the history of global finance, few agreements have wielded as many benefits as the petrodollar pact did for the U.S. economy.

COMMENTARY BY ZUESSE: This is probably the biggest news in decades. It could not only endanger the dollar but terminate the U.S. empire. From now on, EurAsia, the world’s largest Continent and new global economic heartland (which all of Europe itself, except Russia, foolishly abandoned and clung to the U.S. when the neoconservative U.S. President Obama grabbed Ukraine by a bloody coup in 2014 and thereby created the Ukraine war with his aim being to trap Russia by placing America’s nukes only 300 miles away from The Kremlin, which Russia finally prevented on 24 February 2022) will be leading the world, via a new anti-imperialist alliance between China and Russia, at the head of their even bigger anti-imperialist alliance, BRICS. The U.N. will now have to be transformed to outlaw all empires, in accord with the will of virtually all peoples everywhere. READ MORE

Ask Copilot AI: Does the Earth Constitution Yield More Sovereignty Than the UN Charter? 

Roger Kotila

Editor: AI (Artificial Intelligence) Copilot didn't do too badly on this question of sovereignty. But one of the paradoxes, however, is that I believe that in comparison to the current geopolitical system, the Earth Constitution could provide much more real "sovereignty" than from the UN Charter. How? Currently all nations make decisions forced upon them due to the dangers of war or a coup in the present geopolitical system. Ending war and the threat of war via the EC would give nations the freedom and resources to better meet their domestic needs such as for health care, education, housing, infrastructure, social security, etc. -- R. Kotila, PhD

Does the Earth Constitution Yield More Sovereignty Than the UN Charter? 

Microsoft's COPILOT AI* (Artificial Intelligence) answer:

*The Earth Constitution and the UN Charter are two distinct frameworks that envision different approaches to international governance and the concept of national sovereignty.

 The UN Charter is a foundational treaty that established the United Nations and its structure. It is often considered a cornerstone of modern international law, setting out the rights and obligations of member states and the principles of international relations, including respect for national sovereignty1. The Charter emphasizes the equality of all member states and their sovereign rights, while also outlining the mechanisms for international cooperation and conflict resolution2

On the other hand, the Earth Constitution is a proposed framework for a federated world government, put forward by the Earth Constitution Institute (ECI). It envisions a more integrated approach to global governance, with a democratic world government that has enforcement powers beyond those of current treaty-based institutions like the United Nations3. The Earth Constitution would require nations to demilitarize and eliminate weapons of war, with the World Government itself being non-military4. This suggests a significant shift from traditional notions of national sovereignty, as it implies a higher level of supranational authority and a move towards a more unified global legal system.

In essence, while the UN Charter seeks to maintain the traditional concept of national sovereignty within an international framework, the Earth Constitution proposes a model that could potentially yield some aspects of national sovereignty to a global governing body. The degree to which national sovereignty is preserved or yielded would depend on the specific provisions of each document and the extent to which they are adopted and enforced by the international community. [End of answer from CoPilot AI.]