Day: January 14, 2024

By George Ford Smith

Donald Trump, Julian Assange, Alex Jones, and Rudy Giuliani are in deep trouble with the US state. How about you?

Most likely you feel safe because your voice hasn’t attracted a large following. What would the state’s enforcers gain by attacking a little guy? They’re big-game hunters. Pull the plug on the big guys and their everyday followers float away like bathtub water down a drain.

Possibly you believe you aren’t really attacking the state with your social media posts, just the corrupt regime currently in power. As long as your words don’t go too far off the rails you think trouble will leave you alone.

That’s the theory, at least.

Most libertarians are not Rothbardians. They think the state is necessary but needs to be slashed, not done away with—much like what the heroic Javier Milei is doing in Argentina. Their comfort zone is a minimalist state, and they write or lecture from that position. As such, these people are explicit defenders of the state per se and therefore cannot be considered enemies of the state.

The SWAT team hacking at your door couldn’t care less.

Why pick on you? What if they did decide to make an example of you, an inconspicuous promoter of seditious thoughts? The big guys have money and influence to defend themselves. You have nothing. You would be at their mercy, and they have no mercy. Would you stand your ground or crumble like a sandcastle during a tsunami? Would you wave your First Amendment rights at their weapons, or would you forget your own name? Your story would shake the social media world, exactly their reason for attacking you.

Is it really worth your life to defy the state?

In June 1989 Tank Man stood in front of a column of Chinese tanks as they advanced on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to crush a student protest. No one knows who he was or what happened to him. Yet for a few tense minutes he stopped the progression of tanks by holding his hand up before being swept away by Chinese officials. He did this in daylight, while in full public view. Most people are asleep at six in the morning when the SWAT boys come knocking.

The Firebrand Thomas Paine

Perhaps the power of your writing will elevate you to the state’s crosshairs. Thomas Paine, an Englishman, wroteCommon Sense as a talented commoner living in Philadelphia, and it inspired a revolution. He even took up arms against his native country and joined George Washington’s army.

Paine wrote another inspiring piece in late December 1776 that the general had his officers read to their ragged troops on Christmas Day. With their spirits temporarily boosted, they seized Trenton from the hungover Hessians early the next morning. It was a pivotal victory for the patriots.

Paine, being an ocean away, paid no price for his treason.

Later, while in England, Paine wrote another book that did get him in trouble. Rights of Man: Part the First, published in 1791, written as a defense of the early French Revolution and as an answer to MP Edmund Burke’s attack on it, expressed Paine’s undying contempt for government: “Lay then the axe to the root, and teach governments humanity. It is their sanguinary punishments which corrupt mankind. In England the punishment in certain cases is by hanging, drawing and quartering; the heart of the sufferer is cut out and held up to the view of the populace.”

And in Rights of Man, footnote 24, “It is scarcely possible to touch on any subject, that will not suggest an allusion to some corruption in governments.”

For Part the Second, published later, Paine fled to France to escape arrest, and while there the English convicted him in absentia of seditious libel. They would have ceremoniously hung him if he ever returned to England, which he never did.

Nevertheless, according to Paine biographer Jack Fruchtman Jr., “Other than the Bible, The Rights of Man outsold all other books in English history.”

You might think Paine would have been recognized as a hero in his time. If he was, the public had a strange way of showing it. As I wrote in an earlier essay, “The man who inspired the country to secede from a corrupt state had six people in attendance at his funeral [in 1809], none of whom were dignitaries.”

Much later, Teddy Roosevelt famously described Paine as “a filthy little Atheist.” It was a false characterization, but most people neither know nor care that it is.

The White Rose

Led by five students and a professor at the University of Munich, the White Rose was an intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany that lasted from June 27, 1942, to February 18, 1943. Four days later three members—Sophie Scholl, Hans Scholl, and Christoph Probst—were guillotined by the People’s Tribunal in Munich, ending the movement:

The students got their hands on a manual printing press and began to write texts that encouraged readers to resist the Nazis. They urged readers to engage in passive resistance, reject Nazi philosophy, sabotage the war effort and break through their apathy. “Do not forget that every nation deserves the government that it endures,” they wrote in the first pamphlet, peppering calls to rebellion with poetry and historical references.

They also painted graffiti on walls with the phrase “Hitler the Mass Murderer!” and other treasonous expressions.

Anti-Nazi speech was carefully monitored and investigated by the Gestapo, and the danger of a denunciation was ever-present. On February 18, 1943, Hans and Sophie took a suitcase filled with leaflets to the University of Munich. They were caught throwing extra pamphlets into a courtyard from a balcony, arrested, and interrogated by the Gestapo. Dozens of the group members were subsequently imprisoned.

Each of us should inventory our degree of bravery for the times ahead. Tank Man, Paine, and the White Rose risked their lives opposing a corrupt state. Are you ready to die, if necessary, in defense of your convictions? Are they the backbone of your life or just ideas you’re flirting with? Is death preferable to slavery? Or is slavery death by other means? We must decide and act accordingly.

• About the author: George Ford is a former mainframe and PC programmer and technology instructor and the author of eight books and welcomes speaking engagements.
• Source: This article was published by the Mises Institute

(Eurasianet) — Azerbaijan’s president doubled down on his country’s right to sovereignty over a handful of territories that belonged to Soviet Azerbaijani but have been under Armenian control for more than 30 years. 

In his first interview in 2024 to local TV stations, President Ilham Aliyev touched on the February 7 snap presidential election, his government’s performance in 2023, the military seizure of Nagorno-Karabakh, and prospects for a peace deal with Armenia. 

One question posed to him was about the fate of ex-Soviet-Azerbaijani exclaves and villages now under Armenian control in light of the border delimitation work between the countries. 

The villages at issue here are distant from and far smaller than the main territory that has been under contention for three decades – Nagorno-Karabakh. Now that Azerbaijan has restored full sovereignty over Karabakh, more focus is on the villages, and their status is also in play as the two sides prepare to negotiate over a formal border and a final resolution to the conflict.

There are seven such villages in northwestern Gazakh district. Four of the seven villages – Baghanis Ayrim, Lower Askipara, Kheyrimli, and Gizilhajili – were on the Azerbaijani side of the border between the two former Soviet republics, and were occupied by Armenian forces in the 1990s. Upper Askipara, along with two more villages – Sofulu and Barkhudarli – are oddities of Soviet border-drawing: village-sized exclaves of one former Soviet Socialist Republic inside the borders of another (more than 4,100 Azerbaijanis fled those villages).

Another Azerbaijani exclave, Karki, is further to the south, near Nakhchivan. And there is one Armenian exclave, Artsvashen, inside Azerbaijan; in the 1990s its Armenian residents faced a similar fate to those on the other side of the border. 

“The villages that are not enclaves, the four villages should be returned to Azerbaijan without any preconditions,” Aliyev stated. “For the villages that are enclaves, a separate expert group should be established and this issue should be discussed. We believe that all enclaves should be returned. The roads leading to these enclaves should have the necessary conditions and the people living there should be accommodated in these enclaves. So, this is our position. We cannot understand Armenia’s position.”

There have been rumors ever since the end of the 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, that the villages would return to Azerbaijani control. Soon after the end of the war, the following day Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Azerbaijan’s closest ally Turkey, referred to “the return of the Gazakh villages” in a speech to parliament. In June last year, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s comment at a Q&A session gave the impression that his government was willing to give up Karki. 

Most recently, in October, Azerbaijani media speculated that Pashinyan had pledged to return the villages to Azerbaijan, citing the statement he signed with the leaders of the EU, Germany, and France, in which he recognized Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. 

Also in October, Aliyev told European Council President Charles Michel by phone on October 7 that eight villages of Azerbaijan were “still under Armenian occupation, and stressed the importance of liberating these villages from occupation.”  

While the issue is still debated, Armenian and Azerbaijani border delimitation commissions keep meeting on the border, without mediators’ support. Aliyev said in his interview that the next meeting of the commissions will be held this month, and the issue of the Gazakh villages is on the agenda. 

Another issue at the heart of the border talks is the presence of Azerbaijani troops deep inside what’s generally regarded as Armenian territory. Azerbaijan made several incursions into Armenia since the 2020 war and currently holds an estimated 215 square kilometers of its land.

Aliyev said in the interview that his army would not be retracting any time soon. “Neither from the positions of May 2021 nor from the positions of September 2022. We are not taking a step back because that border must be defined. However, our location, which is currently disputed by Armenia, does not include any settlement. The positions and heights where we stand have never been inhabited before. Today, Armenia continues to occupy our villages, and this is unacceptable. I want to note again that this issue will be clarified during the meeting of the commissions at the end of this month.”

While Israel continues its military offensive in Gaza, the United States is directing a major military operation in the Red Sea, where U.S. warships are maintaining a persistent presence to protect shipping lanes.

With its recently launched Operation Prosperity Guardian, the United States is leading a multinational military coalition to occupy the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab, where oil tankers and commercial vessels have come under attack by Houthi militants in Yemen. The U.S.-led military intervention has brought the United States into direct conflict with the Houthis, who insist that they will continue their attacks until Israel ends its military offensive in Gaza.

“This is about the protection of one of the major commerce routes of the world in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab,” a senior official in the Biden administration said.

Strategic Waterways

For years, the U.S. military has played a central role in the Red Sea, a large waterway between northeastern Africa and the Arabian peninsula that facilitates regional commerce. In April 2022, the U.S. military oversaw the creation of Combined Task Force 153, a multinational naval partnership to patrol the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab, and Gulf of Aden.

“As everyone can appreciate, those waters are critical to the free flow of commerce throughout the region,” Vice Admiral Brad Cooper, the regional U.S. naval commander, explained at the time.

The Red Sea is a vital shipping route, accounting for nearly 15 percent of all seaborne trade. It facilitates commerce between Europe and Asia, enabling commercial ships to save time by passing through the Middle East rather than taking a longer route around Africa.

The Red Sea is also a major transit route for the world’s oil and natural gas. Significant amounts of oil from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other countries in the Persian Gulf are routed through the Red Sea to markets in Asia, Europe, and North America. Overall, the Red Sea accounts for 8 percent of global trade in liquefied natural gas and 12 percent of seaborne trade in oil.

“The Red Sea is a vital waterway,” White House spokesperson John Kirby said at a January 3 press briefing. “A significant amount of global trade flows through that Red Sea.”

Of particular concern to U.S. officials is the Bab al-Mandab, a strait at the southern end of the Red Sea. Only 18 miles wide at its narrowest point, the strait forms a chokepoint that forces commercial vessels into tight shipping lanes. As of early 2023, an estimated 8.8 million barrels of oil passed through the Bab al-Mandab every day, making it one of the world’s most significant chokepoints.

“The Bab al-Mandab Strait is a strategic route for oil and natural gas shipments,” the U.S. Energy Information Agency notes.

Operation Prosperity Guardian

Now that the Houthis are attacking commercial vessels in the Red Sea, the United States is establishing a larger military presence in the region with Operation Prosperity Guardian. Under this new initiative, the United States is working with its coalition partners to establish what U.S. officials call a “persistent presence” in the southern Red Sea, meaning that coalition warships and other military assets will remain actively spread out across the area in a kind of military occupation.

“Together, we now have the largest surface and air presence in the southern Red Sea in years,” Cooper said at a January 4 press briefing.

As part of the operation, warships from France, Great Britain, and the United States are positioned throughout the southern Red Sea. They have been reinforced by the Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, which is located in the Gulf of Aden.

Already, the U.S.-led military coalition has engaged in hostilities with the Houthis, including one incident on December 31 in which U.S. forces sank three Houthi small boats, killing 10 fighters.

“It’s up to the Houthis to halt the attacks,” Cooper insisted. “They’re the instigator and initiator.”

The United States and the Houthis

This is not the first time that the United States has come into conflict with the Houthis. For years, the United States supported Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen against the Houthis. Both the Obama and Trump administrations provided a Saudi-led military coalition with advanced weaponry and military advice, even as it repeatedly committed war crimes by striking civilian targets.

The Saudi-led military intervention sparked one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, leading to the deaths of more than 377,000 people. A temporary truce that began in April 2022 led to a reduction in hostilities, but the war has never ended, creating fears that it could reignite at any moment.

“Nobody should believe that the current state of affairs with relatively low levels of fighting is going to last,” Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) noted late last year.

Throughout Saudi Arabia’s military campaign in Yemen and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, the United States has been the main power behind the scenes, arming its allies while their military operations have caused tremendous harm to civilians. Officials in Washington have insisted that they have sought to minimize civilian casualties, but their priority has been to prevent the wars from disrupting commerce in nearby waterways, especially in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandab.

“There’s no question in my mind that this is very important, not only to the countries in the region but globally,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said last month, referring to the need to ensure freedom of navigation. “What the Houthis are doing affects commerce around the globe.”

U.S. Considerations

As several powerful companies have begun halting their operations in the Red Sea, some current and former U.S. officials have been calling for stronger military action, such as military strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen. The United States previously took direct action against the Houthis in October 2016, when a U.S. warship fired cruise missiles against radar sites in Yemen.

Still, high-level officials have been careful about taking the war directly to the Houthis. So far, President Biden has decided against striking Houthi targets, even after being presented with military options.

A major concern in Washington is that any kind of escalation against the Houthis could reignite the war in Yemen, which has already left the Houthis with the upper hand. When former CIA analyst Bruce Riedel considered the prospect of a U.S. war in Yemen late last year, he questioned whether the people of the United States would support such a war.

“I would venture that if you ask 100 Americans, ‘who are the Houthis?’” Riedel said, “99 percent of them would say, ‘the whats, the whats?’”

Another major concern is that a U.S. war against the Houthis would create further complications for the United States and its allies. If the United States attacked the Houthis, then the Houthis might respond by bringing the war to areas beyond the Red Sea, such as Israel. Already, the Houthis have launched drones and missiles toward Israel.

Officials in the Biden administration have been so concerned about the implications of going to war against the Houthis that they have not accused the Houthis of attacking the United States, even as the Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles in the direction of U.S. warships. Administration officials have claimed that they cannot conclude with certainty that the Houthis have deliberately targeted U.S. military forces.

Additional members of the current U.S.-led military coalition share similar concerns, with some even going so far as to refuse to disclose their participation in the U.S.-led military coalition. Whereas some are concerned about retaliation, others fear what people might think about their participation in a military operation that is indifferent to the suffering of the people of Gaza.

“Not all want to become public,” Kirby acknowledged.

Implications for Gaza

While officials in Washington weigh their options, they are doing little to address the core issue, which is Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza. The Biden administration opposes a ceasefire, even as it repeatedly demands that the Houthis end their attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea.

Essentially, the Biden administration is engaging in a form of imperial management, as its works to help Israel continue its military campaign in Gaza while limiting its effects on regional dynamics and global markets. Rather than backing a ceasefire, the Biden administration is hoping to minimize the repercussions of Israel’s offensive for the global economy and contain any movement toward a wider war.

What the Biden administration has shown, in short, is that it cares far more about protecting fossil fuels and the world’s most powerful businesses than it does about protecting the people of Gaza.

This article was published by FPIF

Heart of Iran’s economic relations with Azerbaijan is transport and transit – Ambassador  AzerNews.Az

Azerbaijan’s Bribery Scandal: Council of Europe’s Credibility at Risk  BNN Breaking

UPDATE: FBI Stalls In Seth Rich Case, Refuses To Hand Over Evidence https://t.co/tkz5EvV0mu #DNC #fbi #SethRich via @DailyNoahNews

— Lonnie Woodall (@LonnieWoodall2) January 14, 2024