Despite all the sabotage of Armenophile European countries such as France, Belgium, and so on, Azerbaijan determinedly moves forward in its path.
Day: December 25, 2023
The Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, led by Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac, held a special worship service on Sunday, December 25, 2023, to pray for peace and justice in the face of the ongoing Israeli bombing of Gaza.
The service was live-streamed online and attracted thousands of viewers from around the world who wanted to witness the solidarity and compassion of the Palestinian Christians.
Dr. Isaac, who is also an academic dean at Bethlehem Bible College and the director of the Christ at the Checkpoint conferences, delivered a powerful message that denounced the violence and called for an end to the occupation and oppression of Palestine.
He said: “We are here today to worship God, who is under the rubble in Gaza, who is suffering with us, who is crying out for justice and freedom. We are here today to pray for our brothers and sisters in Gaza, who are facing death and destruction every day. We are here today to stand with them as one body in Christ.”
He also urged his fellow Palestinians to resist any form of violence or revenge that would only escalate the conflict and harm their own cause.
He said: “We do not want war. We do not want bloodshed. We do not want hatred. We want peace. We want dignity. We want human rights. We want justice.”
He appealed to the international community, especially the United Nations, to intervene and stop the Israeli aggression that has killed hundreds of Palestinians and injured thousands more.
He said: “We ask you, O God, to intervene on behalf of your people, who are being killed by your chosen ones. We ask you to stop this madness that has gone too far. We ask you to bring an end to this occupation that has lasted for more than 70 years. We ask you to restore our land that has been stolen from us.”
He concluded his message by saying: “We thank you for your love that never fails us. We thank you for your grace that sustains us. We thank you for your hope that inspires us.”
The worship service ended with a hymn of praise and a prayer for peace.
Categories
NPR News: 12-25-2023 11PM EST
The failure of the United States to convince the Australian government to send one vessel to aid coalition efforts to deter Houthi disruption of international shipping in the Red Sea was a veritable storm whipped up in a teacup. The entire exercise, dressed as an international mission titled Operation Prosperity Guardian, is intended as a response to the growing tensions of the ongoing Israel-Hamas War.
Washington has made no secret of the fact that it wants to keep Iran away from Israel’s predations by deterring any provocative moves from Teheran’s proxies. But Israel’s murderous war in the Gaza Strip is not exactly selling well, and a special coalition is being seen as something of a distracting trick. But even within this assembly of states, the messages are far from uniform.
France’s Defence Minister, for instance, has promised that its ships would remain under French command, supplementing an already pre-existing troop presence. Italy’s Defence Ministry, in sending the naval frigate Virginio Fasan to the Red Sea, has its eye on protecting the interests of Italian shipowners, clarifying that the deployment would not take place as part of Operation Prosperity Guardian. Likewise Spain, which has noted that EU-coordinated and NATO-led missions took priority over any unilateral Red Sea operation.
To that end, the Australian government has been unusually equivocal. In recent months, the tally of obedience to wishes from Washington has grown. But on the issue of sending this one vessel, the matter was far from certain. Eventually, the decision was made to keep the focus closer to home and the Indo-Pacific; no vessel would be sent to yet another coalition effort in the Middle East led by the United States.
The sentiment, as reported in The Guardian Australia, was that Australia would reduce its naval presence in the Middle East “to enable more resources to be deployed in our region.” In doing so, Canberra was merely reiterating the position of the previous Coalition administration.
In October 2020, the Morrison government announced an end to the three-decades long deployment of the Royal Australian Navy in the Middle East. Then Defence Minister Linda Reynolds revealed that Australia would no longer be sending a RAN ship to the Middle East on an annual basis, and would withdraw from the US-led naval coalition responsible for patrolling the Strait of Hormuz by 2020’s end.
It was good ground for Australia’s current Labor Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, to build on. In his words, “We’ve actually consulted our Australian Defence Force heads about these matters and with our American friends. That’s why you’ve seen no criticism from the US administration”. When pressed for further clarification about the allegedly inadequate state of Australia’s naval capabilities, the PM simply affirmed the already guaranteed (and dangerous) commitment of Canberra to “the Indo-Pacific, a fairly large region that we look after” with “our American friends.”
The warmongers were particularly irate at the modest refusal. Where there is war, they see no reason for Australia not to participate. And if it concerns the United States, it follows, by default, that it should concern Australian military personnel and the exercise of some fictitious muscle. This slavish caste of mind has dominated foreign policy thinking in Canberra for decades and asserted itself in an almost grotesque form with the surrender of sovereignty to the US military industrial complex under the AUKUS agreement.
The Coalition opposition, displeased with Albanese’s decision, had no truck for diplomacy. Lurking behind their reasoning were script notes prepared for them by the US-Israeli concern that Iran, and its Houthi allies, be kept in their box. “Is Mr Albanese seriously claiming that Australia can assert diplomatic influence over the Houthi rebels?” asked the Shadow Minister for Defence Andrew Hastie and the Shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor.
In the Murdoch press, two-bit, eye-glazing commentary on Australia neglecting its duties to the US war machine in distant seas could be found in frothy fury. Here is Greg Sheridan, more cumbersome than ever, in The Australian: “We are saying to the Americans and the Brits – under AUKUS we expect you to send your most powerful military assets, nuclear submarines, to Australia to provide for our security, but we are so small, so lacking in capability and so scared of our own shadow, that under no circumstances can we spare a single ship of any kind to help you protect commercial shipping routes – from which we benefit directly – in the Red Sea.”
The Royal Australian Navy, Sheridan splutters, is simply not up to the task. One of its eight ANZAC frigates is almost never in the water. The RAN is short of crews and short of “specialist anti-drone capabilities.” The implication here is evident: the government must, in the manner of Viv Nicholson’s declaration on her husband winning the football pools in 1961, “spend, spend, spend.”
Paul Kelly, another Murdoch emissary also of the same paper, was baffled about the “character” of the Labor government when it came to committing itself to the Middle East. The Albanese government should have been more bloodthirsty in its backing of Israel’s war against Hamas. It dared back, along with 152 other UN member states, “an Arab nation resolution calling for ‘an immediate humanitarian ceasefire’ – a resolution, given its wording, that was manifestly pro-Palestinian.”
What struck Kelly as odd, suggesting the glaring limits of his understanding of foreign relations, was that Australia did not commit to the coalition to protect shipping through the Red Sea because it does not have the naval capability to do so. But armchair pundits always secretly crave blood, especially when shed by others. And to have members of the RAN butchered on inadequate platforms was no excuse not to send them to a conflict.
Aspects of Sheridan’s remarks are correct: Australian inadequacy, the fear of its own shadow. The conclusions drawn by Sheridan are, however, waffling in their nonsense. It is precisely such a fear that has led the naval and military establishment fall for the notion that Canberra needs nuclear-propelled boats to combat the spectre of a Yellow-Red Satan to the north. With a good degree of imbecility, an enemy has been needlessly created.
The result is that Australian insecurity has only been boosted. Hence more military contracts that entwine, even further, the Australian military with the US Armed Forces. Or more agreements to share military technology that give Washington a free hand in controlling the way it is shared. In history, Albanese’s refusal to commit the RAN to the Red Sea will be seen as a sound one. His great sin will be the uncritical capitulation of his country to US interests in the Indo-Pacific.
The failure of the United States to convince the Australian government to send one vessel to aid coalition efforts to deter Houthi disruption of international shipping in the Red Sea was a veritable storm whipped up in a teacup. The entire exercise, dressed as an international mission titled Operation Prosperity Guardian, is intended as a response to the growing tensions of the ongoing Israel-Hamas War.
Washington has made no secret of the fact that it wants to keep Iran away from Israel’s predations by deterring any provocative moves from Teheran’s proxies. But Israel’s murderous war in the Gaza Strip is not exactly selling well, and a special coalition is being seen as something of a distracting trick. But even within this assembly of states, the messages are far from uniform.
France’s Defence Minister, for instance, has promised that its ships would remain under French command, supplementing an already pre-existing troop presence. Italy’s Defence Ministry, in sending the naval frigate Virginio Fasan to the Red Sea, has its eye on protecting the interests of Italian shipowners, clarifying that the deployment would not take place as part of Operation Prosperity Guardian. Likewise Spain, which has noted that EU-coordinated and NATO-led missions took priority over any unilateral Red Sea operation.
To that end, the Australian government has been unusually equivocal. In recent months, the tally of obedience to wishes from Washington has grown. But on the issue of sending this one vessel, the matter was far from certain. Eventually, the decision was made to keep the focus closer to home and the Indo-Pacific; no vessel would be sent to yet another coalition effort in the Middle East led by the United States.
The sentiment, as reported in The Guardian Australia, was that Australia would reduce its naval presence in the Middle East “to enable more resources to be deployed in our region.” In doing so, Canberra was merely reiterating the position of the previous Coalition administration.
In October 2020, the Morrison government announced an end to the three-decades long deployment of the Royal Australian Navy in the Middle East. Then Defence Minister Linda Reynolds revealed that Australia would no longer be sending a RAN ship to the Middle East on an annual basis, and would withdraw from the US-led naval coalition responsible for patrolling the Strait of Hormuz by 2020’s end.
It was good ground for Australia’s current Labor Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, to build on. In his words, “We’ve actually consulted our Australian Defence Force heads about these matters and with our American friends. That’s why you’ve seen no criticism from the US administration”. When pressed for further clarification about the allegedly inadequate state of Australia’s naval capabilities, the PM simply affirmed the already guaranteed (and dangerous) commitment of Canberra to “the Indo-Pacific, a fairly large region that we look after” with “our American friends.”
The warmongers were particularly irate at the modest refusal. Where there is war, they see no reason for Australia not to participate. And if it concerns the United States, it follows, by default, that it should concern Australian military personnel and the exercise of some fictitious muscle. This slavish caste of mind has dominated foreign policy thinking in Canberra for decades and asserted itself in an almost grotesque form with the surrender of sovereignty to the US military industrial complex under the AUKUS agreement.
The Coalition opposition, displeased with Albanese’s decision, had no truck for diplomacy. Lurking behind their reasoning were script notes prepared for them by the US-Israeli concern that Iran, and its Houthi allies, be kept in their box. “Is Mr Albanese seriously claiming that Australia can assert diplomatic influence over the Houthi rebels?” asked the Shadow Minister for Defence Andrew Hastie and the Shadow Treasurer, Angus Taylor.
In the Murdoch press, two-bit, eye-glazing commentary on Australia neglecting its duties to the US war machine in distant seas could be found in frothy fury. Here is Greg Sheridan, more cumbersome than ever, in The Australian: “We are saying to the Americans and the Brits – under AUKUS we expect you to send your most powerful military assets, nuclear submarines, to Australia to provide for our security, but we are so small, so lacking in capability and so scared of our own shadow, that under no circumstances can we spare a single ship of any kind to help you protect commercial shipping routes – from which we benefit directly – in the Red Sea.”
The Royal Australian Navy, Sheridan splutters, is simply not up to the task. One of its eight ANZAC frigates is almost never in the water. The RAN is short of crews and short of “specialist anti-drone capabilities.” The implication here is evident: the government must, in the manner of Viv Nicholson’s declaration on her husband winning the football pools in 1961, “spend, spend, spend.”
Paul Kelly, another Murdoch emissary also of the same paper, was baffled about the “character” of the Labor government when it came to committing itself to the Middle East. The Albanese government should have been more bloodthirsty in its backing of Israel’s war against Hamas. It dared back, along with 152 other UN member states, “an Arab nation resolution calling for ‘an immediate humanitarian ceasefire’ – a resolution, given its wording, that was manifestly pro-Palestinian.”
What struck Kelly as odd, suggesting the glaring limits of his understanding of foreign relations, was that Australia did not commit to the coalition to protect shipping through the Red Sea because it does not have the naval capability to do so. But armchair pundits always secretly crave blood, especially when shed by others. And to have members of the RAN butchered on inadequate platforms was no excuse not to send them to a conflict.
Aspects of Sheridan’s remarks are correct: Australian inadequacy, the fear of its own shadow. The conclusions drawn by Sheridan are, however, waffling in their nonsense. It is precisely such a fear that has led the naval and military establishment fall for the notion that Canberra needs nuclear-propelled boats to combat the spectre of a Yellow-Red Satan to the north. With a good degree of imbecility, an enemy has been needlessly created.
The result is that Australian insecurity has only been boosted. Hence more military contracts that entwine, even further, the Australian military with the US Armed Forces. Or more agreements to share military technology that give Washington a free hand in controlling the way it is shared. In history, Albanese’s refusal to commit the RAN to the Red Sea will be seen as a sound one. His great sin will be the uncritical capitulation of his country to US interests in the Indo-Pacific.
By Jeff Ziegler
In a recent AIER article, Justice Will Sellers paid tribute to It’s a Wonderful Life, the 1946 film in which the angel Clarence appeared to George Bailey as he considered ending his life on Christmas Eve.
Bailey’s despair changed to gratitude when Clarence showed him how his choices had influenced countless others for the better.
“Strange, isn’t it?” Clarence asked. “Each man’s life touches so many other lives. When he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”
Frank Capra’s Hollywood and Adam Smith’s Great Britain are 170 years and five thousand miles apart. Although my tenth-grade students were far from George Bailey’s despair, Adam Smith was able to play a role like that of the angel Clarence in a recent class.
I was guiding my students through the early sections of The Wealth of Nations — or more accurately, Smith was our guide, and I was doing my best to recede into the background.
We arrived at the long last paragraph of Smith’s first chapter, “Of the Division of Labour.” Smith asks his reader to imagine “the accommodation of the most common artificer or day-labourer” in a flourishing nation.
“You will perceive that the number of people, of whose industry a part, though but a small part, has been employed in procuring him this accommodation, exceeds all computation,” Smith wrote.
Smith then guided us through the workman’s room. Smith pointed out a coarse, rough woolen coat, and he described the different people involved in its making:
The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production.
How many merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting the materials from some of those workmen to others, who might live in a very distant part of the country?
How much commerce and navigation in particular, how many shipbuilders, sailors, sailmakers, ropemakers, must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the world?
We continued listening, as it were, to Smith’s guided tour of the worker’s room. Smith spoke of tools and machines, furniture and utensils, shoes, and pewter plates. He led us to ponder the “glass window which lets in the heat and the light, and keeps out the wind and the rain, with all the knowledge and art requisite for preparing that beautiful and happy invention, without which these northern parts of the world could scarce have afforded a very comfortable habitation.”
“If we examine, I say, all these things, and consider what a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible that, without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized country could not be provided, even according to, what we very falsely imagine, the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated,” Smith added.
We discussed what Smith’s words meant, and we let them sink in. We applied his lesson to familiar nearby objects: books and computers, school sweatshirts and tennis shoes.
My students were amazed. A few weeks before, they had read Leonard Read’s “I, Pencil.” Now they were simultaneously contemplating “I, Book,” “I, Computer,” “I, School Sweatshirt,” “I, Tennis Shoe,” and a hundred other objects in the classroom.
Adam Smith showed my students that they are constantly influenced for the better by the work of countless thousands of others whom they will never know. The students realized that they, too, will influence myriads of others through their own work and economic decisions.
“Wow.” “That’s really cool.” “I feel really humbled.” High praise from high-school sophomores, as the dismal science became, if only for a class period, an enchanting one.
“Each man’s life touches so many other lives,” said the angel Clarence. “When he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”
Clarence’s words were an echo of Adam Smith’s. Strange, isn’t it?
- About the author: Jeff Ziegler has been the Dean of Academics at Pinnacle Classical Academy since 2019. Prior to becoming a high school teacher, he worked as a development officer at two colleges and as an editor. He received his bachelor’s degree in classics from Princeton University and his master’s degree in Austria.
- Source: This article was published at AIER