David L.Smith

Director - Okapi Consulting; Project Director - Radio Ndarason Internationale - region du Lac Tchad. Talking & listening can fix most things.

[susan abulhawa | سوزان ابو الهوى @susanabulhawa]

in case anyone is feeling down, here's a little pick-me-up for you.

[Terrill Tailfeathers @Terrilltf]

There’s an anti-Indigenous hate crisis in Canada. Carney is a bigot who ignores it. It’s a Canadian value to dehumanize Indigenous people. “Antisemitism” is a manufactured crisis in service of a foreign nuclear armed genocidal apartheid state that controls Canadian politicians.

[Jean-Luc Mélenchon @JLMelenchon]

Est-il possible d'avoir une relation respectueuse avec les médias traditionnels de l'officialité ? Les uns publient des montages mensongers, les autres font des comptes rendus qui sont des tracts de propagande. Ainsi l'AFP qui publie une dépêche sur mon discours sur la situation internationale sans s'être déplacée, qui est un montage de mépris atlantiste. Vivement la libération des médias prévue par notre programme de 2027.

[Yves Engler @EnglerYves]

Posts Saturday on Lebanon, Iran & ‘antisemitism’ suggest Ottawa wants more Lebanese, Iranians & Palestinians killed.
In a Facebook post yesterday Global Affairs formally endorsed the puppet Lebanese government’s ‘framework agreement’ with Israel, which greenlights the Jewish supremacist state’s indefinite occupation of the south of that country. In point 13 of the accord Lebanon purportedly gives up its legal claims against the Israeli occupation even though, writes former senior United Nations human rights official Craig Mokhiber, “Article 47 of the 4th Geneva Convention explicitly states that protected persons in occupied territories cannot be deprived of the benefits of the Convention ‘by any agreement concluded between the authorities of the occupied territories and the Occupying Power.’”

While thousands of Lebanese protested the government agreeing to violate international law by betraying the country’s sovereignty, Ottawa posted “Canada welcomes the U.S. announcement of a framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel, a meaningful step toward resolving the long-standing conflict in Lebanon. We encourage the parties to work in good faith towards its full implementation. Canada commends the parties for committing to concrete measures toward strengthening Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. To that end, Canada will continue to support the efforts of the Lebanese government and Lebanese Armed Forces to disarm and demobilize Hezbollah.”

The Lebanese government didn’t only legitimize the brutal Israeli occupation of its country, they accepted Israel’s plan for a civil war. Israeli officials haven’t hidden their hope for such a conflict. The aim is to turn the US-EU-Canada financed and trained Lebanese army against Hezbollah, which would likely stir violent sectarian conflict.

The Lebanon deal is also a back doorway for Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israel lobby, working with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, to undercut the US-Iran memorandum of understanding. It gives Israel an excuse to violate the MoU, which requires Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. The first paragraph in the fourteen-point MoU repeatedly calls for an end to Israeli belligerence in Lebanon and “ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon.”

The Iran MoU is shaky of course. Over the past two days the US has bombed Iran multiple times and Trump threatened to make that country “no longer exist.” The fanatical US president posted: “United States aircraft just struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the Cease Fire Agreement, AGAIN! It is very possible that they will never learn! There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist! President DJT.”

While staying mum on US strikes and threats, Ottawa condemned the Iranian response. Foreign affairs minister Anita Anand posted, “This morning, I spoke with Bahrain’s Foreign Minister, H.E. Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al Zayani, to reaffirm Canada’s solidarity with the people of Bahrain and condemn Iran’s unlawful violations of Bahrain’s sovereignty. Canada continues to call for a durable solution that advances peace and security in the region.”

In an ostensibly unrelated, though connected, development yesterday a full-page ad hyping “antisemitism” signed by Stephen Harper, Paul Desmarais Jr. and the non-Jewish CEOs of Telus, National Bank, Sun Life, Rogers and Scotiabankwas published in the Globe and Mail, Le Devoir, National Post, Montreal Gazette, Toronto Star, Ottawa Citizen,Saskatoon Star Phoenix, Regina Leader-Post Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Halifax Chronicle Herald, Vancouver Sun and Winnipeg Free Press. The ad campaign that likely cost upwards of a half million dollars is part of the Zionist effort to manufacture an “antisemitism” crisis to suppress criticism of Israel and enable its continued colonization and violence.

Saturday afternoon Prime Minister Carney quote tweeted the campaign’s https://t.co/PNkJlHuThk website stating, “The crisis of antisemitism in Canada today demands a targeted response. It also requires all of us to raise our voices in disgust and defiance when we see the ugly face of antisemitism. Because Canada’s promise is a country where Jewish Canadians can be visibly, fully, joyfully Jewish in public life.”

Boosting a manufactured “antisemitism” crisis, criticizing Iranian violence but not US bombing and lauding an accord legitimating Israel’s occupation of Lebanon are but the tip of the iceberg in terms of Canadian support for Israeli-US violence. Canada continues to arm Israel, share intelligence, turn a blind eye to institutions “inducing” Canadians to join a foreign military and subsidize huge sums of ‘charitable’ donations to the European colonialist state. Regarding the US, Canada assists its warfare through a slew of bilateral military accords, soldier exchanges, arms sales, etc. while on Iran Ottawa has severed diplomatic relations, labels it a state sponsor of terror and lists the IRGC a terrorist organization.

Despite Israel killing incessantly for three years in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran and elsewhere, Canada continues to release statements assisting its and US violence in the region.

[Craig F̶o̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ @Craig_Foster]

‘I don’t know the first thing about Bosnia, and I don’t want to know.’

Yeah.

Exactly.

That’s the problem with the world, right there.

[Amir @AmirAminiMD]

I haven’t said much about this World Cup, but I’m going to say this:

I never expected anything other than pettiness and bigotry from this administration.

And I definitely never expected anything less than corruption and incompetence from FIFA.

But I did expect basic decency and sportsmanship from the competition.

I have lost every ounce of respect I ever had for players and teams who remained silent in the face of blatant discrimination and unfairness against one participant.

At this point, not a single one of them is worth being called a sportsman, let alone holding the title of world champion.

[Harry Pettit 🇱🇧🇵🇸 @HarrygPettit]

To paraphrase Mohammed Al-Kurd:

In one part of the world, we have mothers complaining about being threatened by some words on a tshirt.

In another part of the world, we have mothers searching through the rubble for their dead children.

Guess who receives more attention?

[Richard Medhurst @richimedhurst]

Since it's the World Cup, it's a good time to re-share this investigation on Israel's Olympic & football team.

All their athletes are IDF, and they have praised the IDF's actions — even dedicated medals to them.

No reprimand from FIFA or the IOC...

https://t.co/lxirpytCOr

[Sony Thăng @nxt888]

There is an American think tank for every mystery that isn't a mystery.

Why does Iran have a nuclear program? Twelve scholars, four reports, two conferences, one documentary on PBS.

Answer available without a think tank:

The United States overthrew their government in 1953, backed the Shah's secret police for more than two decades, supported Saddam Hussein when he used chemical weapons against Iranians in the 1980s, has maintained crushing economic sanctions for nearly half a century.

And two sovereign states that abandoned or dismantled their nuclear programs, Iraq and Libya, were subsequently invaded or bombed into chaos.

That's not analysis. That's a sequence of events that any Iranian government, of any ideology, would respond to in roughly the same way.

But the think tank exists because the answer cannot be we gave them every rational reason to want a deterrent.

That answer has consequences.

That answer implies accountability.

That answer walks five feet into common sense and common sense leads somewhere nobody in that building wants to go.

So instead:

Scholars. Reports. Conferences. Documentaries.

The mystery is maintained.

The machinery keeps running.

The budget gets renewed.

[William Dalrymple @DalrympleWill]

With Churchill's connections to the Bengal Famine hitting the headlines this week, it's worth revisiting our @EmpirePodUK
episodes on the history.

Listen to Episode 117 with @kavpuri to find out more...

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

Why are American journalists so proud to announce their ignorance like this?

Is there any other country in the world that would do this?

[Glenn Diesen @Glenn_Diesen]

NATO-funded military recruiters in Ukraine

[Jean-Luc Mélenchon @JLMelenchon]

Il faut refuser la diplomatie des clubs fermés.

Le G7 est une forme de directoire du monde composé de puissances qui ne représentent que 10% de l’humanité.

Le G20 est un élargissement qui reçoit ses ordres du précédent. Il ne représente que 60% de l’humanité.

La seule organisation qui représente 100% des êtres humains est l’ONU. Certes imparfaite, elle est un bien précieux qu’il faut défendre et perfectionner.

L’ONU peut être à l’avant-garde de la conscience humaine, sur le problème des dettes souveraines, la constitutionnalisation de l’eau et de nombreux sujets.

[Chris Hedges @ChrisLynnHedges]

The fascist roots of America inspired Nazi Germany. Now, Israel's etho-nationalist genocidal culture inspires America's Christian Nationalists, who have gained power in the second Trump administration.

[K.Diallo ☭ @nyeusi_waasi]

Lumumba Vea, DR Congo's most iconic supporter, will miss the Leopards' decisive World Cup match against Uzbekistan after failing to obtain a U.S. visa. Stranded in Mexico, he was forced to return home to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, meaning he'll also miss any remaining matches if DR Congo advances. I've seen enough. This is the worst-organized World Cup I've ever witnessed.

[Sony Thăng @nxt888]

Here's a thought experiment they don't teach in American schools.

Imagine a foreign power, significantly stronger than the United States, decided after a disputed intelligence assessment that the American government posed a threat.

It assembled a coalition, invaded, removed the government, disbanded the military, releasing hundreds of thousands of armed men into unemployment, and installed a transitional authority composed largely of exiles who had been living in the foreign power’s country for twenty years.

It then spent the next decade conducting night raids on American homes.

It ran detention facilities where Americans were held without charge and in some cases tortured.

It operated checkpoints in American cities where American citizens were stopped, searched, and sometimes killed by foreign soldiers who did not speak English and could not distinguish a civilian from a combatant and in many cases did not particularly try.

A generation of American children grew up in this environment.

Would you describe those children's resulting hostility to the foreign power as:

(A) A rational response to their lived experience

or

(B) Evidence of a cultural pathology that requires theological and anthropological analysis?

You already know the answer.

You knew it before I finished the sentence.

The exercise is only necessary because the question is never asked the right way around.

[Craig Murray @CraigMurrayOrg]

Andy Burnham's Chief of Staff will be James Purnell.

Ex Chair of Labour Friends of Israel.

All you need to know.

[susan abulhawa | سوزان ابو الهوى @susanabulhawa]

at this point, calling Israelis Nazi whitewashes the magnitude of their depravity. They've long surpassed that bar.

[David L.Smith @okapidavid]

Yanqui go home.

[Sophie Mokoena @Sophie_Mokoena]

The South African government has responded to the U.S. diplomat Brent Bozell after he publicly criticised SA relations with Iran and China. #sabcnews

[Glenn Diesen @Glenn_Diesen]

Iran's spokesman for the Foreign Ministry refers to the "clear and damning" admission by Rutte about NATO's criminal participation in the war of aggression against Iran.