As we enter a critical stage in the SMO in Ukraine, we have invited Finbar Markey back to give us his latest up to date expertise on the events in the conflict in eastern Europe.
Since the inauguration of President Trump the two super powers, US and Russia have been talking to try and find ways towards a lasting ceasefire and just peace in Ukraine.It seems that those talks are going to the satisfaction of the superpowers. It is however, not playing so well with the US vassal states.
The US MIC has never had it so good.Their order books are full for years to come.Their coffers are overflowing as they replenish all the NATO countries military hardware. The Biden Administration had encouraged their NATO satellite nations in Europe to send weapons to the Kiev regime. To the MIC who wins or who dies is of no consequence. They make money from death, not peace!
This has allowed those European countries to talk tough from behind the US umbrella while sending/selling on all of their out of date arms to the US puppet state, Ukraine.In turn the US MIC has been able to replenish the NATO countries with their latest over-priced weapons.The Europeans in return have been able to bring in more and more restrictions on theur citizens and remove more and more civil rights. Freedom of speech is still allowed, as long as you repeat the western lies about Ukraine and never criticise Israel.Tell the truth about either of these topics can land you in big trouble.
President Trump’s desire to pivot the US to ‘containing’ China has wrong footed Europe’s Russophobic neoliberal warmongers.The EU nations under the control of the unelected Commission headed up by Ursula von der Leyden are apoplectic at the thought of the war and killing ending.
Meanwhile, heavy fighting continues at the front. The Russian army retains the strategic initiative, but it is still too early to talk about the collapse of the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ defenses. Everyday villages and towns are coming under direct Russian control. This is always at a huge human cost.Experts are suggesting that the peace talks between the Russians and US could take at least six months to reach a conclusion.
With estimates of anywhere between 500 and 1,000 Ukrainians dying or being wounded every day the death toll is horrific. We are hearing the true figure of casualties for Ukraine since February 2022 is now in the region of 1 million+ killed and wounded already.We also know that over 7 million Ukrainians have left their homes and settled elsewhere with no thought of returning after the conflict ends.
Why any decent human being would want this slaughter to continue is mind boggling. However, these Russophobic warmongers have no kids or husbands on the front line.They are of the mind that the killing can continue until ‘to the last Ukrainian.’ Ukraine is not a member of either the EU or NATO and yet both organisations have threatened their very own existence on this folly. We ask why, what is in it for them? It is either money or twisted ideology!
Finbar brings us the latest news from the front and his views on the moves by the movers and shakers in Moscow, Washington and Brussels.What are the chances and likelihood of a lasting peace? This is the topic of our discussion. Watch and see if it agrees with your view of the situation.
Great Prism again, Roddy. So much covered. I don’t always agree with everything, and I think I had a run-in with Finbar before, but Prism is one of the most intellectually brilliant shows on offer and you allow all opinions. A rarity these days. Oddly, I, too, subject everything I read and hear to scrutiny, but I sometimes come out on the opposite side of things.
I do mainly agree with what has been said on the Russian-Ukraine war. Everybody seems to have forgotten that the Ukrainians did bomb the Eastern parts – the Donbas, and others – killing thousands. Ethnic Russians were, in fact, burned alive in a block of flats – men, women and children – in Odessa. I hate the way that everything is filtered through a particular prism, if you’ll pardon the pun.
Also, Finbar is quite correct in stating that the Eastern parts of Ukraine did wish to have independent status (Minsk Accords) and voted against uniting with Ukraine in referendums held by Russia. It remains to be seen whether Putin will accept that compromise now; those regions were mainly pro Russian, but I wonder if that is still the case. I wish that Ukraine had offered to negotiate sooner, though, without the huge loss of life and displacement.
I, too, think that the pipeline was blown up by a British element or led by such. Just the location alone suggests that. There are those who do not want British (and Scottish) people to have cheaper energy, although an end to the war could lead to a lowering of energy bills all over Europe. The sidelining of Scotland on the issue of energy is very, very deliberate, as is the moving away from Russian gas, almost an act of economic suicide.
On Israel-Gaza, if I don’t exactly take the opposite view – I do support an independent Gazan state that is Hamas-free, and partly because Hamas is no friend to the Palestinians there – I don’t believe that there has been a genocide, albeit the death toll is very high. However, it is lower than in most recent conflicts, and, even if we take the Hamas overall estimate, it is considerably lower than that of Sudan and Yemen.
The West Bank, though (Judea and Samaria) will be ceded to Israel or annexed. That has been on the cards for some time now, and the Palestinians there will be offered Israeli citizenship or Gazan citizenship, I think. I could be very wrong, but I have never really been convinced of the Gaza annexation.
I think it’s a faux move, a feint, not least because it would be totally contrary to international law, the Israelis actually having no historical claims to it, as archeological excavation after excavation have shown. Judea and Samaria, on the other hand, were parts of the ancient Israelite kingdom.
Netanyahu will not want to afford it independence any time soon – at least, until it is rebuilt, but neither, I think, will he want to disperse the Palestinians who are quite capable of causing even more unrest in the region in the future. I think he knows, as does Trump, that Gaza will have to be rebuilt and independence granted eventually, but the West Bank is gone even as we speak.
While we have the combatant figures for Ukraine, although I suspect Russian losses have been exaggerated, though still high, we have had no figure at all for Hamas deaths. Before any final figure can be acceptable, it must be broken down into its various parts: combatants, civilians (men, women, children), natural deaths (from old age) and deaths from illness (again broken down into illnesses not associated with war and those associated with war). It is fundamentally irregular to have no break-down as in every other conflict.
As for the Bibas family, yes, a lot of the hostage families are very angry that they had not been protected as, apparently, the female soldiers on the base next to the border, had tried to warn the authorities that they suspected some kind of mobilization in Gaza.
Apparently, the Israeli intelligence services did know that a strike was likely, from Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah together, but Hamas jumped the gun and Israel was caught napping.
Whether the children were strangled can be proved quite easily if Israel is willing – or the families – to open up the post mortem details. If the hyoid bones in the children and their mother (although I suspect she was shot) were crushed, it is almost certainly true that they were murdered. Crushing under rubble does not, generally, lead to hyoid fracture; usually, this it is the result of manual strangulation.
What is put down to lying on the part of the Israelis – and god knows, all governments and politicians lie – may, in reality, be true, not propaganda. I do believe that people were killed in ‘friendly fire’, but that happens in all conflicts and is not unique to Israel. Nor are crimes by soldiers in the heat of battle.
The reluctance of Israel to show bodies and post mortem details is understandable, as their religion forbids displays. In this, both Judaism and Islam have much in common. Fast burial is another aspect of death they have in common. However, the Israelis could release the details to ambassadors, for example or diplomatic staff from the different embassies, including the Islamic nations. Hamas could also release details of Hamas fighter deaths instead of lumping them in with the overall civilian casualty rate.