Re: Liberal World Order, R.I.P.
Salaam
Another update
Niger Tests Clown World
One of the inevitable consequences of the sanctions war on Russia was the realization by third parties that economic globalization is a trap that provides more external control than internal opportunity. This is why the Sino-Russian turn to Africa, Asia, and South America is significant, as it threatens to exclude the self-styled “global majority” from the greater part of the world’s population. That’s why the USA put so much pressure on African leaders to not attend the second St. Petersburg summit.
Quote:
Last week’s Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg was a landmark event in Moscow’s foreign policy concept and practice. Not so much because it brought scores of African leaders and senior officials to the country. The first summit, four years ago in Sochi, featured even more African heads of state. Also, it is not solely because its agenda expanded beyond economics and included a humanitarian dimension: this is important, but this isn’t all.
Essentially, the meeting, with the bureaucratic preparation and the wide public coverage it has received within Russia, testifies to a sea change in Moscow’s worldview and international positioning toward the world’s rising non-Western majority, as laid down in the recently adopted Foreign Policy Concept.
St. Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great in the early 18th century as a ‘window to Europe,’ and last week, it served the same purpose for Africa.
Eurocentrism, of course, is still deeply embedded in the Russian elite’s thinking and aspirations. Nevertheless, the failure of Russia’s long travails of Western integration in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union has now exploded into the proxy war against the United States and NATO in Ukraine. This has produced a historic shift in Moscow’s policies, comparable to the time of Peter the Great in its significance, though in a wholly different direction. For the foreseeable future, the universe of Russia’s foreign policy will remain divided in two large parts: the house of foes including Europe, North America, and the rest of the Anglosphere, and the house of friends elsewhere. The dividing line between the two is a country’s position in relation to the sanctions regime against Russia.
Africa, in this regard, is largely on the right side of that divide. 49 nations out of the continent’s 54 were represented in St. Petersburg. True, only 17 of them participated at the top level. No longer a curious and skeptical observer, as during the Sochi summit four years ago, the West this time made a determined effort, advising, cajoling or threatening African leaders against going to Russia and dealing directly with President Putin.
Russia has proven that it is possible for a nation to stand up to the US military, which from Afghanistan to Iraq and Libya, had hitherto crushed every rebellion against the Clown World order. Which, one suspects, is why Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso have banded together to protect the new Nigerois regime from Clown World’s regional proxies.
Quote:
In a move considered a tactical way to protect the recent regime change in Niger, Mali’s military Junta said Monday that they stand to support the coup leaders in Niamey. Mali said that they stand together with Burkina Faso to defend Niger and further warned that any foreign military intervention in Niamey will be considered a declaration of war on both nations with Niger.
“I warn that any military intervention against Niger will be considered as a declaration of war against Burkina Faso and Mali,” announce Col. Abdoulaye Maiga, State Minister for Territorial Administration and Decentralisation, Mali junta.
The announcement was in response to the outcome of a summit by regional bloc ECOWAS that gave a 7-day deadline to Niger’s coup leaders to free detained president Mohamed Barzoum and restore civilian rule or face consequences, with military force an option being considered.
The irony of the appeals to democracy by the USA and the UK, both of which are led by equally unelected heads of state, is unlikely to escape the Russians, the Chinese, and everyone else observing the matter. If the new Nigerois government finds enough support to maintain power, this will be the second significant step toward the complete collapse of the Clown World order.
And since Wagner doesn’t appear to be occupied at the moment, I expect they’ll be willing to accept gold and uranium in lieu of cash.
https://voxday.net/2023/08/01/niger-tests-clown-world/
https://www.islamicboard.com/images/...8/image1-1.png
More seriously.
Quote:
Africa is preparing for war
After the coup d'état in Niger and the removal of the French puppet from the presidential position, the West African organization ECOWAS, which is under the full control of the United States and France, announced that it would attack Niger.
Yesterday, Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea jointly declared that the attack on Niger is an attack on all of them and that they will intervene militarily.
But the most interesting part is Algeria's statement that it will also intervene militarily if Niger is attacked. Today the Chief of Staff of the Algerian Army arrived in Moscow for a meeting with Shoigu. Algeria is likely to receive heavy weapons from Russia and Iran through its ports.
The USA and France have confirmed that they support military intervention by ECOWAS, de facto confirming that they are creating a new war in the world like in Syria and Ukraine.
The same scheme worked for them when they destroyed Libya, but today Niger has powerful support
Good point
Re: Liberal World Order, R.I.P.
Salaam
More comment from a mainstream perspective.
The coup in Niger puts spotlight on nation’s uranium
Tensions are building in Niger just days after a military junta ousted its democratically elected government. A coalition of West African states issued an ultimatum Sunday to Niger’s putschists, threatening military intervention if deposed President Mohamed Bazoum is not returned to power by Aug. 6. Members of the regional bloc, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), suspended relations with Niger and shut their land and air borders with the country. While ECOWAS meekly stood by in recent years as juntas supplanted civilian leaders in Burkina Faso and Mali, the crisis in Niger may mark a different phase in regional politics.
“This is where the junta in Niamey may have miscalculated. They may have assumed a weak ECOWAS response just like in Mali and Burkina Faso,” Alex Vines, head of the Africa program at Chatham House, a London-based think tank, told the Financial Times. “But ECOWAS has drawn a line in the sand. Defense planners have been tasked to plan an intervention — it’s not bluff.”
Upping the ante, the Malian and Burkinabe regimes put out their own joint statement Monday, warning that an ECOWAS intervention in Niger could prompt a military response from their states. Western powers, chiefly France and the United States, are being more circumspect, keen not to fan the flames of anti-Western feeling that surged around the coups in neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali. The Biden administration is so far unwilling to label what happened in Niger formally as a “coup,” as that determination would trigger immediate blocks on the security aid that Washington provides a country seen as a bulwark both against Islamist extremist threats and encroaching Russian influence in the region.
The coup-plotting generals seemed to be digging in their heels, though it’s far from clear whether all of Niger’s military apparatus is fully behind the putsch. Over the weekend, their supporters demonstrated in front of the French Embassy in the capital, Niamey, threw stones at the compound and attempted to set it on fire before being dispersed by security forces. Some waved Russian flags or bore signs celebrating Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Amid escalating anti-French rhetoric, the junta allegedly said that it was suspending exports of uranium to France. The radioactive ore is impoverished Niger’s main export and has, over the years, brought the country into the global spotlight — most notoriously in 2003, when dodgy intelligence about a possible Iraqi purchase of 500 tons of Nigerien “yellowcake” uranium formed part of the American case to launch the “preemptive” invasion of Iraq.
Niger is the world’s seventh-biggest producer of uranium, possesses Africa’s highest-grade uranium ores, and is one of the main exporters of uranium to Europe. France, the country’s former colonial ruler, is a major importer of Nigerien uranium, which helps power the massive French civil nuclear industry.
On Monday, a statement from France’s Foreign Ministry indicated that a falloff in uranium from Niger would have minimal impact, because “our supplies are extremely diversified.” The ministry said Tuesday it would evacuate French and other European nationals from the country.
But some analysts suggest the impasse may have a kind of snowball effect, forcing European governments to reconsider further punitive action against Russia, one of the world’s biggest exporters of uranium. “It could have consequences at the EU level. Uranium — and nuclear power in general — is still not subject to sanctions,” Phuc-Vinh Nguyen, an energy expert at the Jacques Delors Institute in Paris, told Politico. “If the situation in Niger gets worse, this would certainly complicate the adoption of sanctions on Russian uranium in the short term.”
Orano, a French state-backed nuclear energy company, has major stakes in three uranium mines in Niger, though only one is in operation. Located far to the north of Niamey, closer to the dusty border with Algeria, the mines have been more vulnerable to Islamist militants than coup-plotting militants. A colonial expedition in search of copper in the late 1950s turned up the uranium, and Orano, formerly known as Areva, has operated in the country for the better part of half a century.
In a part of the world deeply sensitive to the French colonial legacy, the extraction of uranium can be a smoldering issue. Environmental watchdogs have documented over the years incidents of negligence and abuse, in which dangerous levels of radioactive waste were left among the local populations living near the mines. Earlier this year, France-based investigators found that 20 million tons of waste left near a recently depleted mine was spreading a potentially lethal radioactive gas known as radon, contaminating groundwater and endangering over 100,000 people living in adjacent communities.
A decade ago, the Nigerien government engaged in protracted negotiations with Orano over a new contract, angry over the cut in royalties afforded to Niger by the French company. Oxfam, an international advocacy group, highlighted the clash at the time between one of the world’s poorest countries and Orano as a “David vs. Goliath” struggle. The dealings were also shrouded in allegations of corruption in the years thereafter.
Now, given the uncertainty of the moment, new questions surround Niger’s uranium industry. What will happen to France’s interests? Will other countries — chiefly, Russia — find opportunistic accommodation with the junta and finagle concessions in natural resources? Before the coup, Niger was already exploring options for energy investment, including the cultivation of a new uranium mine, with China.
But given the enduring presence of French companies in Burkina Faso and Mali, no matter the anti-Paris disposition of the juntas there, there may be little change to the current status quo. “In most of Niger’s coups d’état, the uranium sector was never fundamentally in question,” Emmanuel Grégoire, director emeritus of research at the Research Institute for Development, a French government agency, told Le Monde. After the 1974 coup, which overthrew the country’s first post-colonial government, Grégoire said that “negotiations took place because the French had imposed contracts that were financially detrimental to the Nigeriens, but there was never any question of kicking them out.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...r-france-coup/
Re: Liberal World Order, R.I.P.
Salaam
To continue with Niger lets look at Frances role in this part of the world.
France secretly owns 14 countries
Blurb
@kieranbrady1240
5 months ago
Geez everyone talks about the UK and Spain when they used to rule colonies but France went in so deep they've never even properly left
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-u1Pjce4Lg
Russia is competing with other European powers through its mercenary group Wagner.
Russia secretly in war in Africa
Blurb
@headoverheels88
1 month ago
I always knew Wagner had a large presense in Africa, but I had no clue it was this wide and this entrenched. Honestly, this helps explain why Prigozhin survived (well... so far...) his little coup attempt; his little operation is much too important for the Russian Federation, especially as being able to avoid sanctions (with blood gold and diamonds) is top priority. I'm curious to see how this all pans out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydH39HjuFZs
More analysis.
Blurb
The French have found themselves caught between a rock and a hard place, and a coup in Niger happens to be the catalyst for this predicament. To be clear, we're only talking about Niger because of what it means for the French.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6Nu62pLodg&t=368s
More players entering the 'game'
Quote:
]Most of us understand that the struggle for control of the Sahel is currently manifesting in conflict between Wagner and al-Qaeda (read: France); but this could get very complicated, very fast.
The UAE and KSA have an interest here which they are sharing with Russia; but the Emiratis don't want Wagner to muscle them out of the equation, and the Khaleej has access to their own for-hire-Islamic militants. So, this could potentially get even more dicey than we all already expect.
Re: Liberal World Order, R.I.P.
Salaam
Another update
The Third Front
To be honest, I thought that Iran or Syria would be the Second Front of World War III, prior to China opening Taiwan, Korea, or even the Philippines as the Third Front. But it appears Niger may have already claimed that honor. Still, the Middle East is already drawing more US troops and ships away from the Ukrainian Front.
Quote:
The US military has deployed thousands of troops and additional naval assets to the Middle East to “deter” Iranian forces. The move comes after Washington accused Tehran of harassing commercial vessels and other “destabilizing” actions.
The US Navy’s 5th Fleet announced the decision on Monday, noting that more than 3,000 marines and sailors had arrived in the Red Sea aboard an amphibious assault ship and a dock landing vessel the day before.
“These units add significant operational flexibility and capability as we work alongside international partners to deter destabilizing activity and deescalate regional tensions caused by Iran’s harassment and seizures of merchant vessels earlier this year,” 5th Fleet spokesman Commander Tim Hawkins told The Hill in a statement.
The amphibious assault ship sent in the latest deployment, the USS Bataan, also carried additional air assets, the Navy added. Though it did not specify the systems on board, the military said that the ship can carry more than two dozen rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft, including the Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft and AV-8B Harrier attack jets, in addition to a number of landing craft. The smaller USS Carter Hall, a docking ship, will act as a support vessel for operations involving landings or amphibious attacks.
The usual hypocrisy is on display here. The USN’s justification for this deployment is “to defend the freedom of navigation”. While just yesterday, US Senators and neoclowns were decrying the Russian and Chinese ships that were exercising the very right that the US Navy is claiming to defend in the Red Sea.
Quote:
In a statement on Saturday, two Republican Senators representing the state of Alaska – Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan – said a total of 11 ships had been detected “transiting US waters in the Aleutians,” citing a classified briefing, and labeling the activities “an incursion.”
Sullivan said it marks “yet another reminder that we have entered a new era of authoritarian aggression led by the dictators in Beijing and Moscow,” adding that he was pleased to see a robust US response involving four American destroyers.
Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, has called the patrol “a historical first” and “highly provocative” considering tensions over Taiwan and the Ukraine conflict, the WSJ reported.
Of course, all of these actions are little more than gunboat diplomacy. A single destroyer and a single Marine Expeditionary Unit are not a serious threat to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps nor are they meant to be. What really has the neoclowns alarmed is that Russia and China have sent a very clear signal to Iran, Niger, and every other country that isn’t controlled by Washington DC that they are no longer afraid of the US Navy, and that any country that challenges the globalist hegemony doesn’t need to fear US-backed regime change anymore.
https://voxday.net/2023/08/08/the-third-front/
Re: Liberal World Order, R.I.P.
Salaam
Like to share.
Blurb
Many people may not realize that BRICS, both the concept and the term, was created by Goldman Sachs in 2001. De-dollarization, the destabilization of Europe, the rise of BRICS, the potential new BRICS currency, and the pivot to Asia, are all occurring by design
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ovKDCGCXL0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4_tUssN0po
Re: Liberal World Order, R.I.P.
Salaam
Another update. The talk about 'neo feudalism' is going mainstream.
Blurb
The world is witnessing an epochal shift, according to Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis: from the now-dead capitalism, to “technofeudalism”.
In his latest book, the former Greek politician - who in 2015, at the height of the Greek debt crisis, was catapulted from academic obscurity to Minister of Finance - argues that insane sums of money that were supposed to re-float our economies in the wake of the financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic have ended up supercharging big tech's hold over every aspect of the economy. And capitalism's twin pillars - markets and profit - have been replaced with big tech's platforms and rents; while we, the “cloud serfs”, increase these companies’ power with every online click and scroll.
Today on Ways to Change the World, Yanis Varufakis tells Krishnan Guru-Murthy how the world is grappling with an entirely new economic system and therefore political power, and why Britain and the EU are “irrelevant” compared with the “fiefdoms” of US and Chinese tech firms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9lJQONTC7Y&t=460s
Yanis Varoufakis on the hidden power of the US dollar: how America's debt shapes the global economy
Blurb
In this video, Yanis Varoufakis explains the real reasons why the US dollar remains powerful and how America's debt shapes the global economy. He also tell us why the BRICS face enormous obstacles in trying to challenge the hegemony of the dollar, and much more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec-tKTF0C0E
Re: Liberal World Order, R.I.P.
Salaam
Another update
Stumbling Toward 2033
Simplicius explains his perspective on the decline and fall of Clown World:
Quote:
The general gist though of what’s happening now is that the world is hurtling toward a nexus point, a sort of singularity moment, because the entire 20th century’s worth of hyper-financialized “capitalism” has reached a near-breaking point.
The type of system in the West relies on parasitism and labor theft to keep its own luxurious standards afloat, as well as mediate the endless debt expansion and ever-ballooning inflation. They needed globalism to do this, as globalism allowed a new form of parasitizing the rest of the world by smudging out economic borders between countries and creating a predatory pipeline enabling the “too big to fail” corporations and banks in the West to keep themselves afloat by increasingly robbing the rest of the world via offshoring and other globalist techniques.
The problem is, that too has come to its end, as most developing nations like China have reached a level where it’s no longer profitable to use them for slave labor, and infact they’re in turn becoming so powerful that they threaten to form new economic blocs that could entirely usurp the Western money cabal’s rule of the globe.
One of the ways the West has been kept afloat is via the anchor of the U.S. dollar, which was made possible by secret coercive deals with all vassals to prop it up by way of purchasing U.S. government treasuries and bonds—in short, financing all U.S. debt.
But now that too has reached its limit as China and other traditional purchasers are no longer buying, and are in fact dumping, the treasuries. This is leading to a point of no return, where the entire Western financial system has no way out, no further quick “saves” like before.
In the past, they used several emergency stopgap measures to buy themselves a few more years of time. The financial crash of 2008 was the first crack heralding the end of the system. They pumped trillions upon trillions to keep the system afloat, but by the 2020s it was obvious time was running out and final collapse was again close. So they panicked and rolled out the Covid hoax to save the system one final time. Under cover of the Covid falseflag, they managed to sneak another few massive trillions into the system to get a last few precious years.
But now they’ve run out of options. Only the final tried and true method could save them: instigate some type of global war/conflict, which is mostly why they provoked the Ukrainian conflict at the time they did, after years of it being frozen.
As you said, things are now moving at breakneck speeds and the power elite are hanging by a thread, as they’re being assailed and losing on almost every front: from social media, where they’ve failed to stop the onslaught of ‘truth’ destroying most of their fake “Fact-Checking” fronts and Ministry of Truth attempts (Nina Jankowicz, etc.); to the global geopolitical flashpoints where they’re besieged, from Ukraine to the MidEast; to the Covid and “Climate Change” hoaxes, which are taking a beating in the public forum; the ‘paradigms’ are crashing all around.
Now I believe hyperinflation has truly begun in the U.S. Forget Biden’s cooked numbers, everyone who’s paying attention can see the prices for everything are skyrocketing YoY.
So where is it all leading? I believe the turmoil is only just beginning. Sure, there’s potential for a major culmination to happen by election time, or 2025, but I personally think it will drag out a bit longer both in U.S. and Europe as well.
Large new movements are growing in Europe, we’ve seen the wave of conservative and ‘right wing’ candidates sweeping many countries. The citizens are up in arms and angrier than ever, with major protests getting steadily more violent in France, Netherlands, Ireland, Italy, and everywhere in between. Insanely totalitarian new laws are being rolled out everywhere, from the new proposed clampdowns in Ireland, to the crazy anti-free-speech laws in Germany and the EU at large with their DSA.
There’s still far more “room for growth” in terms of the degradation and disaffectation in society. I believe this trajectory will continue for another few years, with A.I. developments adding the final ‘unpredictable’ black swan momentum which could veer everything into untold and unforeseen directions.
That’s why I don’t see a final collapse or major historic ‘events’ happening until closer toward 2030, but it’s very possible it can happen sooner.
What I find fascinating is the way in which what was deemed impossible and borderline insane when I first pointed out the observable trajectory back in 2004 gradually became conceivable in the late 2010s and is now increasingly becoming seen to be inevitable in the early 2020s. That doesn’t mean I was correct, of course, as even the seemingly inevitable is only a probability, but it is rather fascinating to see the way public opinion has shifted so massively over the last two decades.
https://voxday.net/2023/11/29/stumbling-toward-2033/
Re: Liberal World Order, R.I.P.
Salaam
Like to share
Blurb
This past week, the world has reflected on the death of former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. As Nixon's national security advisor, he was notorious for his ultra-realist approach to international politics, which saw the policy of triangulation with China and the Soviet Union that was pivotal in bringing China into the Western sphere and ultimately helping the emerging economy become a global power. But also the carpet bombing of Laos and Cambodia, in a failed attempt to solicit concessions from the North Vietnamese. Such unscrupulous foreign policy is again on display over Gaza. The silence with which the Western powers have embraced the slaughter and the tacit, if not open, approval of Israel's behaviour evokes a long-standing memory in the global south about a racist colonial logic. Today, we would like to explore this with our very own elder statesman', Dr Mahathir Mohamed.
Dr Mahathir Mohamad has been Malaysia's longest-serving prime minister for some 22 years. He has stewarded Malaysia through a difficult period; today it is a thriving economy. He came back to power briefly after winning a resounding victory in 2018. Dr Mahathir has seen first-hand in his 98 years the rise of America and the establishment of Israel, but also the sorry state of much of our ummah - and today, we would like to tap into his extensive knowledge and wisdom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvVGlR_l_q0
Re: Liberal World Order, R.I.P.
Salaam
Like to share
Blurb
The events of the past 6 weeks have exposed the sheer double standards that apply to the implementation of international law. The so-called liberal international order has been found to be nothing short of hypocritical. Gaza has exposed not only this duplicity but also the very ideas that undergird such a system. Today, we explore these ideas. Many surmise that the West has taken a wrong turn, and if only they return back to their original noble enlightenment values. Yet Gaza unveils a more unsettling truth. That the values of secular liberalism have always remained connected to European chauvinism. Their unbridled support for a settler colonial project and the ease with which they absorb genocide reveals the unsettling nature of liberalism. This is the argument of my guest today, Hasan Spiker.
Hasan Spiker is a philosopher and comparative scholar of Islamic, Greek, and modern thought he studied at the University of Cambridge, where he received his MPhil in philosophy and where is carrying out his doctoral research. He also studied the Islamic sciences. His new book, Hierarchy and Freedom: An Examination of Some Classical Metaphysical and Post-Enlightenment Accounts of Human Autonomy, was released this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gk9qKJs48gg&t=1576s
Re: Liberal World Order, R.I.P.
Salaam
Another update.
Blurb
Craig Murray is a retired British Ambassador turned activist. In this powerful message recorded in early April, he explains cogently why Israel's systematic breaking of international law and the West's complicity in that are leading to dire consequences for all of us. Attacking embassies, bombing civilian infrastructure, executing non-combatants, intentionally starving a besieged population, and other war crimes break are a breach of norms enshrined in the Geneva Convention, the Vienna convention, and other foundational multilateral treaties that make up the fabric of the international world.
International law only works when the international community actually believes in it. There is no supra-national police man who could enforce these laws with due authority. Hence, the laws only carry weight to the extend that all states agree they should be kept. The systematic breaking of these laws—with limitless impunity—and the support for that by the Collective West will hunt us all. We might all become Palestinians if our states decide that they are not bound anymore by the conventions of old and the principles of humanitarianism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2juV794znnI
Related.
Israel land grab law 'ends hope of two-state solution'
Re: Liberal World Order, R.I.P.
Salaam
Another update, continuing on the same theme.
Blurb
Imam Tom Facchine is the research director of the Department of Islam and Society at Yaqeen Institute. And a prolific speaker and commentator on Islam and philosophy. He discusses the US empire, American exceptionalism, liberalism and US Muslims abandoning Biden.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb2UrMohvDs&t=1696s
