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4·4 months agoFrance is heavily centralized, has deep rooted corruption, favors the rich with tax exemptions and loopholes while dismantling social security and basic opportunities for the lower and middle class, believes itself to be a global power and maintains a military accordingly, but fails to secure its post-colonial resource exploitation more and more. Add to that a catastrophic strategic blunder in focusing on more nuclear power as the primary energy source, instead of developing much cheaper renewables, which will probably cost the country hundreds of billions if not trillions over the next century.
While Macron was hailed as some sort of “center alternative” to Le Pen in many media outlets outside of France, he actually is a hardcore neoliberal that set out to pillage the country in favor of the rich even more and blame it on the immigrants, further helping the Fascists gain momentum.
For reference how bad the corruption in France is. Former president Sarkozy and his crownies are currently under investigation as they have been bankrolled by the former Libyan dictator Gaddafi.
So it is basically what we see in many countries around the world right now, but the decline is more advanced. France used to be able to mask its internal economic decline with its resource exploitation.
28·4 months agoThe BBC is omitting a crucial point here. There aren’t only videos of spokespeople saying they were attacked. There is multiple videos from different angles, all showing the matching scene of something burning being dropped onto the ship, where it explodes.
It is literally on video and beyond any reasonable doubt, that the ship was attacked by an incendiary device being dropped onto it.
https://aje.io/e4f7v5?update=3934620
https://aje.io/e4f7v5?update=3934641
https://aje.io/e4f7v5?update=3934496
https://aje.io/e4f7v5?update=3934417The videos are consistent with each other. The videos of the attack itself have matching time-stamps.
Either an update of the Tunisian government hasn’t reached the western press yet, or the Tunisian government is doubling down on a lie in order to safe face in the wake of a direct attack on their sovereignty and their failure to identify and prevent the threat.
Maybe France should just make a betting rack on how long their prime ministers last and use that money to reduce their debt?
Germany is supplying “Anti-Tank” Rocket launchers, for which videos exists of IDF soldiers blowing up houses in Gaza with them. The submarines are used as part of the patrol to enact the sea blockade against Gaza, which is crucial for starving the people in Gaza to death and kill fishermen trying to fish near the coast. Israeli Merkava tanks run on tank engines and gear boxes by German manufacturers. Without these neither the onslaught in Gaza, nor the invasion of Syria would be possible. Other deliveries included artillery ammunition. But also other “gear” like helmets, plate carriers, communication equipment… they all serve an invading and occupying army and are thereby part of the attack.
I agree that it is part of a smoke screen. But the smokescreen already starts in claiming these systems would be deadly or the claim that they would suspend systems that could be used in Gaza, but continue to supply systems that could be used elsewhere. First of all the distinction cannot be made outside of a “pinky promise” and even if it could, Israel is illegally occupying the Westbank and parts of Syria and parts of Lebanon and soon following up probably with Egypt and Jordan to create a zone, where they can ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from Gaza and the Westbank to.
In that sense even “air-defense” is part of an invasion army, and serves to continue invading, rather than the alleged “self-defense”
I wonder when we will get from “EU is Hamas” to “we should drop a nuke on Strasbourg and Brussels.”
The fact that multiple politicians, including former ministers, demand the UK to leave a convention on Human Rights, is an alarming signal for the new UK Authoritarianism/Fascism rising.
At this point it is in the best interests of the people living in Northern Ireland to join the Republic, no matter their former allegiances.
Palestine action has been protesting for many years, in particular at weapons manufacturers, whose weapons are illegally used by the Israeli occupation. The UK is, again illegally, using Brize Norton to facilitate weapons shipments and intelligence flights for the illegal Israeli occupation, possibly implicating itself directly in war crimes and crimes against humanity, war of aggression and annexation.
Equating non violent direct action and civil disobedience with “terrorism” is an authoritarian move, setting a precedent to increasingly crack down on civil liberties in the UK, making it more similar to Russia, China, Iran, etc. in how it treats freedom of speech, freedom of press and freedom of protest.
The UK could just not use their military resources for illegal acts, possibly implicating it in war crimes, crimes against humanity, war of aggression and annexation.
Hey that is unfair. There is plenty of places with good weather.
I think that is a bit contradictorary. Unless there is an earthquake or other mayor event, technical systems should not fail under proper maintenance. Especially if the system has been operated since more than a hundred years now.
That realistically only leaves inadequate maintenance or sabotage. Both aren’t “tragic accidents”.
I think Bin Zayed is starting to get cold feet that his people eventually could turn on him too. But the greed remains stronger as we see in continued dealings with Israel, the pillaging of Sudan, destabilizing Libya…
9·4 months agoThey are both linked through their families colonizing history in South Africa, including staunch Nazi support in their families.
It was more the opposite way around.
In Western Germany the official apparatus was rebuilt relying extensively on mid- and sometimes high ranking Nazis. In the GDR former Nazis were kept out of higher positions, but the “denazification” was also insufficient as the problem was “solved” by decreeing that the GDR is antifascist, thereby looking deeper wasn’t necessary.
For instance the author of the Nuremberg Race laws became a close trustee of chancellor Adenauer:
The chancellor, for his part, entrusted himself and his chancellery to Hans Globke, a former official in Hitler’s interior ministry and one of the authors of the Nuremberg race laws. The man Adenauer once called “my dear Herr Globke” was the most powerful government official in Germany for a time, even though anyone who wanted to know could easily consult the abominable lawyer’s anti-Semitic concoctions
The interior intelligence was rebuilt using former SS and Gestapo:
Institutions that, unlike the Finance Ministry, were newly established in the spirit and on the foundation of the new constitution, also employed people formerly affiliated with the Nazis. As the new study shows, former SS members with Gestapo experience were employed at the BfV as wiretapping and postal surveillance experts – initially as free agents, “because, after all, they did have to respect the fact that these people were tainted,” then BfV President Hubert Schrübbers once noted. Schrübbers himself was later removed from office over allegations of his own Nazi past. But nothing against Hitler’s Gestapo. “These people were experts,” a former senior BfV official said in 1965.
The federal criminal investigators (BKA), think of it like a German FBI:
The situation was even worse at the BKA. At times, former members of the SS’s Totenkopf division held more than two-thirds of all senior positions. When the agency began looking into the past of its employees in 1960, about 100 officials, or a quarter of the entire workforce, were investigated.
This enjoyed backing by the US in particular, but the Western allies more broadly, who thought the Nazis as useful for fighting against Communism:
But the Americans did not insist that Gehlen provide them with access to the personnel files of his employees. When a critical member of the US Congress questioned then President Harry S. Truman about cooperation with Gehlen, Truman grumbled: “This guy Gehlen, I don’t care if he screws flies. If he can help us, we’ll use him.”
I recommend you to read the entire article. It goes on further about the judiciary and other aspects with strong continuity.
Another person not mentioned is Hanns Martin Schleyer. He is celebrated as a martyr nowadays and there is streets and stadiums named after him. He was assasinated by the RAF terrorists in 1977, when he was the head of the German employer association and the German industrial Federation.
As SS-Untersturmführer he was tasked with “ariazation” of the Czech economy. When Schleyer is celebrated as victim of communism in Germany of course this part is omitted to this day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Martin_Schleyer
DW is funded and run by the German government to improve Germanys image abroad. It is not a public broadcaster as those are financed through a government independent but obligatory system.
In regards to Palestine it ran a terrible hack job of Israeli propaganda until about earlier this year, when they realized that this is harming the image of Germany abroad much stronger than at least pretending balanced coverage.
They have the backing by the state government. The police violence is part of thr strategy to crack down on dissent as the state government knows it is complicit in Israeli crimes and deeply in bed with Israel-extremist lobby groups. This state government also runs a campaign of expanding racism in particular against “Arabs” and violent escalations by the police help to create news reports of violent and rowdy immigrants making the city insecure, conveniently leaving out the massive violence by the police.
Sounds like the fund should review more US companies and divest from them if they have ties to national security threats.
But far from the international law obligations Germany has and thereby making the German government and the relevant companies complicit in crimes and subject to international prosecution as the German justice system refuses to properly prosecute the suspects.
If you have many cannons and they all shoot at roughly the same area, the many imprecise rounds end up saturating the area effectively.
I fully agree with you that we cannot just look at the raw numbers, but we should also acknowledge that quantity can beat quality. In the modern context we see that with drone swarms that overwhelm sophisticated missile AA systems and lead back to the quantity over quality defense with high RPM cannons being more effective.
Yet Denmark seeks to allow the US a stronger military presence in Denmark and buy even more arms from them.
Looks like Denmark is preparing itself to be the full servant of the US and will likely not mount any actual resistance if the US decides to invade and annex Greenland.
The next flagrant violation of international law. The next war of aggression. The next murder of people Israel and the US claim to be in “negotiations” with. The next proof that Israel has no intention for peace, only for the total annihilation of the Palestinian people.