With the world in the throes of the calamitous COVID-19 pandemic, UN Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres is pushing for a global ceasefire, seeing a planet-wide halt to war as a chance to allow an all-out effort to fight the virus.
This is getting some interest beyond NGOs and the Pope. As of Friday, 11 countries have endorsed the idea, including Cameroon, Central African Republic, Colombia, Libya, Myanmar, the Philippines, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Yemen.
While the UN is still looking for a big nation engaged in foreign wars to really make this a thing, but some of these nations have some substantial domestic conflicts that might benefit from a ceasefire, and countries like Syria may find themselves influencing others.
These are also some of the countries most vulnerable to the COVID-19 pandemics, with countries like Yemen, Libya, and Syria some of the nations least prepared for an outbreak, with war leaving the countries with little medical infrastructure.
Recognition that the wars would only make their situations worse, these nations are backing the global ceasefire, and while it’s still a long way from stopping any huge wars, it shows promising understanding that war and pandemic are two distinct priorities.
US will never participate. Wars are too profitable for the elite run Deep State.
Admirable certainly, but “still a long way from stopping any huge wars”. When coronavirus has passed – and it will – the monumental challenge to stop world war three will remain.
https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
They could get every nation on the planet to agree to this except(ional) one.
Well, three. Israel and Saudi Arabia are equally defined by their conquest addictions.
I was going to make it two, with Israel, but I couldn’t come up with any witty catchphrase. But in reality, if we agreed, no one else would have to.
That won’t happen because of the momentum wars cause. Policies and agenda’s won’t change either. Watch Venezuela, Iraq, Iran, Russia and China and how the USA is reacting to each of them during this epidemic, if you can find a reliable source. ABC only runs sensational, fear mongering articles now and leaves out all other news. It’s so obvious what’s going on to anyone with any awareness.
The USA has always valued capital over human beings. That’s now right out there in the open for the whole world to see and shake their heads over. We had already bankrupted ourselves throwing trillion after trillion at the MIC and there is no entity, Congress or the Presidency, that will put a stop to it.
COVID-19 will show our for-profit health care system for what it really is, worse than third-world. If any nation on the planet is deserving of sanctions, it’s us but the UN will never do that. The big problem is, we have nukes and they’re in the hands of religious fanatics and the crazy psychopaths who run this country and who profit from chaos and war all around the globe.
Our system may be “for profit” to some extent, but it is also 100% government-protected from any real competition, collusion at the state and federal levels keep supplies low and prices high, and 50% of the monies that pass through the system, pass through the hands of government FIRST. GOVERNMENT is to blame for the sham that our healthcare system is. Restore free market forces, restore real choice in medical services, remove government protectionism of the industry, and THEN see how wonderful medicine could be once again.
“Restore free market forces, restore real choice in medical services, remove government protectionism of the industry, and THEN see how wonderful medicine could be once again.”
The USA would have many small cities and maybe whole states with no medical care and certainly no competition if it was left totally up to “free market forces.” The big corpse can’t turn a profit providing medical care to poor people. No other nation on the planet operates that way. Of course, no other nation on the planet pays as much for medical care with miserable third-world outcomes as the USA.
The big corpse loves it just the way it is, of course, just as I assume most people on this site do. “I got mine, Jack” seems to be the libertarian way.
“The USA would have many small cities and maybe whole states with no medical care and certainly no competition if it was left totally up to ‘free market forces.'”
OK, so what you’re saying is that people don’t like to make money.
Feel free to prove that if you think you can.
This is all speculation, Thomas. I know of large areas of the nation, mostly poor and rural, that even now are bereft of adequate health care. Do you really think this would get better if the big corpse was given free reign to follow the money? The biggest problem poor people have is that they don’t have enough money, and there will be millions more of them in the coming weeks and months.
Make up your mind. Are we talking about free markets, or are we talking about big corps? They’re opposites.
If you think we’re going to get rid of the big corpse, you’re really talking “pie in the sky”.
And if you think that anything you’ve said on the whole subject bears the slightest resemblance to reality, that thing that you’re doing that you think is thinking isn’t.
Wow, the ultimate libertarian dis… How pathetic, how sad, I’m so out of here.
Ya, careful dissing libertarians there Carlson…you’ll get Knapp all riled up.
Amazingly, no group doing anything can inhibit a “free market”. If people want to go outside existing systems to do buisness, they can. If the US installs a single payer health system, that same “free market” can compete with it, if it chooses.
Nah, neither you nor Mr. Carlson are capable of getting me riled up. I genuinely wish that wasn’t the case. I could use more excitement. Especially lately.
Well, Carlson (using last names, for obvious reasons) dissed libertarianism in a general sense, which is errant, as you guys have no consensus on really anything, then, you rebutted with a question of “reality”…the most subjective of criticism.
Here’s a question for you..
You challenged my assertion that the US militancy goals in the ME, is the destruction of the ME as functioning social systems. I have made this claim many times, in many places. You, are the first to challenge it, as per the other thread, anywhere. We have been at shooting war there since gulf war 1. If not destruction, what do you see as the goal, in reality ?
“You challenged my assertion that the US militancy goals in the ME, is the destruction of the ME as functioning social systems.”
No, I didn’t. You must be thinking of someone else.
Meanwhile, April 2, 2020 The War on Yemen, 100,000 Deaths, A Crisis Ignored by Mainstream Media Due to Coronavirus Coverage
Meanwhile, on the global periphery, geopolitics continues at full throttle, with several conflicts occurring unnoticed by most people outside the affected regions. The case of Yemen is a clear example of what we are talking about here.
http://infobrics.org/post/30667/
I had heard that 53 nations had joined up. Surely everyone except the USA and Israel is for fighting this pandemic together. Sanctions need to be lifted, obviously, but the USA of course hates that idea. Has it not noticed it has lost control of the ” pivot to Asia” Pacific air support as two of its aircraft carriers are disabled by a tiny virus inside their crowded metal walls. All the illegal sanctions and threats and war machines are useless against this enemy it cannot control on its own territory.
Ceasefire, my ass! Can anyone doubt this regime, Pompeo, Abrams, Barr, MBS,Bibi … views this plague as an ally, a golden opportunity to inflict more pain on their victims. Not to mention, it’s an open question whether the US Army deliberately planted it in Wuhan.
France helped China build that BSL-4 Lab in Wuhan, and France has the most to gain from this crisis, with the Yellow Vests put down and coming up the middle of U.S.-China tensions.
https://gnews.org/119075/
Through the CFA Franc, France all but bankrolls the Euro, as African wealth supports the Euro through currency arbitrage. The recent redesignation as the Eco, simply shifts the European repository of West, and eventually Central, African wealth from Paris to Brussels, the new HQ of the European globalist banking aristocracy.
http://roape.net/2017/05/18/cfa-franc-french-monetary-imperialism-africa/
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/23/imf-welcomes-the-end-of-french-colonial-currency-in-west-african-bloc.html
France was also instrumental in undermining its own health system against COVID-19, according to geopolitical commentator Pepe Escobar.
“Why France is hiding a cheap and tested virus cure: The French government is arguably helping Big Pharma profit from the Covid-19 pandemic” – Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, March 28, 2020.
https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/why-france-is-hiding-a-cheap-and-tested-virus-cure/
DNA collection has taken place in Russia, China AND the U.S.. There’s another player being majorly overlooked – the European globalists, to whom the American globalists answer to.
If SARS-COV2 was artificially developed, then the U.S. might certainly have had a hand in development. However, deployment is an entirely different matter.
U.S. globalists would be on-board with attacking both the U.S. and China, as evidenced by the media circus that at once villainizes China while fostering a panic crashing the U.S. economy.
Very informative articles. How do you see it shaking out in monetary terms? Looks like the renminbi gets the palm with the ruble, Euro, dollar, Yen bunched in a distant second? How would this suite the US globalists who’s wealth is in the second category?
Globalist wealth rests on the U.S. dollar now, and into the future. The chaos just shakes more loose for grabs.
The Chinese renminbi is a safe reserve currency but lacks the fluidity of U.S. dollars. The Chinese controlled arbitrage of their production of wealth into dollars so as to favour the dollar in a way that strongly suggests, they don’t want the exorbitant privilege of being the world reserve currency.
Presumably the Euros need to somehow harness the U.S. economy and its chief export, the dollar, the way they have the CFA Franc/Eco.
However, U.S. imperialism is based on the European model; the need to own someone else’s wealth of production. The U.S. elite knows this game well; its just a matter of who wants to sell out.
If the U.S. is saddled with such overwhelming debt, a compliant U.S. quisling elite can pretend to justify an increasingly subservient partnership with a moneyed power over a default.
China is the visible boogeyman in this scenario, and Europe invisible.
There are three distinct U.S. factions; patriot Constitutionalists, who tend to isolationism and autarky and reject the crimes of European imperialism, nationalist imperialists, who see European nationalist imperialism as the natural way of things, and globalist neocons, a comprador class who view the first faction as primitives and the second as anachronisms.
This last comprador class needs to get rid of the first faction and subjugate the second. They are under the fantasy that they alone are a superclass of citizens of the world, and not pawns to old European money. They buy into the cult of the greater good and other culty faux-progressive horse whispering to justify self-serving economic treason.
There isn’t any alternative to the U.S. dollar; no other nation has total control of a Mackinderan World heartland. There are only two on the planet.
The North American Great Plains may not be THE World Heartland envisioned by Mackinder as the Central Eurasian Plains, but fits his description of a natural geographical fortress surrounding an economically productive bailey.
The U.S.A. has the plus of being more or less united as one nation, small enough to be more efficient than Eurasia, large enough that efficiency balances Eurasia’s sheer size. As Spykmanian rimlands, Canada and Mexico while not totally irrelevant, are far from capable of controlling this Heartland.
A world heartland backed by a strong economy is the natural seat of Empire. The U.S. has been abusing its position since the Spanish-American war, attacking without fear of being attacked in turn where it matters, the homeland. As Mackinder predicted, the Heartland is the source of invasions that remake civilizations; the American cowboy is a Eurasian steppe rider.
The U.S. is naturally paranoid about levels of foreign ownership, as is China. The amount of pie available to foreigners is fixed; Trump’s trade war sacrificed middle-class access to gain greater access to Chinese financial services market, for the U.S. as well as the West.
However, its not in the interests of any Western citizen to have their banks more beholden to Chinese needs than their own.
Tensions driving the U.S. and China apart and out of direct participation in each other’s domestic pies, leaves more room for middleman players, while economic downturn reduces the competition from emerging markets.
However, the U.S. dollar will always be a more natural reserve currency than the Yuan or Euro, and IMF SDRs are a joke.
Mmm, alot to take in.
1) “the US is saddled with such overwhelming debt”….as far as I see it, debt is the goal. Finance is no longer about production of goods and services. It is about generation of interest payments and dividends. Instruments which manipulate markets for a profit, without the messy and complicated production thing.
2) who, exactly, is a “patriot constitutionalist” that is in such a position to influence financial systems ?
3) in regard your “US heartland” historical reference…you are, of course, aware, that the “heartland” you mention used to belong to other peoples? The common reference to the Spanish American war as the beginning of US imperialism is not accurate. The US has always been imperialist, it just took them until the Spanish American war to consolidate Manifest Destiny, and begin expanding offshore.
1. More or less; the U.S. owes most of its debt to itself; if that were to be spread around a bit, the holder would either have a big problem or huge leverage over U.S. policy.
China can’t enforce any U.S. debt obligations, therefore they won’t put out. France/Europe can, if there’s anything at all to the Rothschild mythos.
The U.S. has been so long the hunter, it probably never dawns on U.S. elites they could be the hunted in a big way with the same weapons and techniques – including psychological techniques and colour revolutions – reserved for exploiting developing nations’ wannabe elites.
2. U.S. libertarian nationalists who are into guns, Bibles or Deism or secularism, survivalism, independence and the Constitution. They form the philosophical-cultural core of what it means to be a freedom-loving American.
These guys also know, or pretend to know, how to turn a buck and are often successful entrepreneurs and small business people, living proponents of libertarian economic theory as much as they can be.
The late Steve Jobs and living Warren Buffet may prize their liberal affectations and credentials, but they are libertarian success stories. Howard Buffet was apparently the Ron Paul of his generation, though his son seems to have made a point of rebelling from all that. Actually, a very libertarian response to authoritarianism….
3. (a) ‘Heartland’ as in reference to Halford Mackinder’s World heartland theory.
A nation’s heartland is usually is core productive and population territory, usually where the nation began, or at least a very historically and culturally significant region, often at least one major river valley that is militarily defensible by being accessible only through a few natural chokepoints.
(b) You answered the question; the U.S. began challenging Europe for imperial turf offshore starting with the Spanish-American war. The U.S. always followed an imperial policy, but this was never quite recognized as such until then.
The annexation of Hawaii (1893-1898) was also an offshore imperialist act, but led by U.S. citizens in Hawaii. The U.S. government was conveniently called in to secure American interests there after their coup against Queen Liliuokalani.
The U.S. also invaded Korea, in 1871, but that was more like Perry’s trade and diplomatic expedition to open Japan in 1853, with no serious attempts at land-grabbing, just advantageous trade.
Isn’t the 3rd category, US globalists, a supra-state, a new post-nation state creature whose headquarters is a movable feast, Davos, Bilderberg, Bohemian Grove, Aspen, nso on; opportunistically use any currency, any army, any national gov’t and judicial apparatus, to enforce contracts; enabled by comprador politicians, law firms, businessmen, dictator/generals, island tax havens, …?
U.S. globalists can only sell out the U.S..
They otherwise have no store to give away, not based on abuse of their American citizenship and place in the U.S. government and Deep State.
The US sanctions and blockade are preventing Cuba from getting medical supplies from China.
Yes, it highlights how morally fetid this country is. None of its institutions, political, judicial, military, news media, universities, think-tank intelligentsia, churches, …, all in possession of perfect awareness, denounces the atrocities, the barbarity, of the ruling elite.
The exceptional nation will not participate. By pushing for a global ceasefire, the UN is sowing discord around the world, and as usual, is showing hostility to the always peace-loving United States.
Sarcasm I hope.
Yes!
Whew. Glad you clarified that.
It is not a coincidence that the only countries to jump on board this are the poor ones. The countries starting all the wars to loot those countries have industrial complexes to please before their own people or even basic common sense. The UN serves the looter nations and always has. We need an alternative to this undemocratic northern cartel.
The US government won’t stop murdering innocents around the world for ANY REASON.
The few but various anti-imperialist insurgencies are not backing off over a little cold.
They have actually suffered far worse epidemics and casualties.
“a little cold”
My dad and I both had cancer. I had skin cancer on my leg removed years ago and have a 2 inch scar to show for it. My dad had colon cancer, had many chemo treatments, had to get his stomach drained every couple of months and lived 3 miserable years after being diagnosed. So, someone who has the sniffles and a cough and can be treated with store bought remedies and someone who has to be put on a respirator to continue living both have “a little cold”. I mean, c’mon man.
Kind of tough to come by store-bought remedies in parts of Yemen, or the money to buy such with.
For that matter, France even, though in France if you are young and needing a ventilator you might beat the triage in a chronically crowded underfunded city hospital.
“Why France is hiding a cheap, tested virus cure” Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, March 28, 2020.
https://asiatimes.com/2020/03/why-france-is-hiding-a-cheap-and-tested-virus-cure
COVID-19 is a little cold, entitlement child.
Millions of real people throughout the non-Western world suffer and die of treatable illnesses every day, for no other reason than lacking a little money, never mind war or missing a corner drug store.
Yemen would take a ceasefire, if they could get a real one, but the Saudis/U.S. won’t ever give one.
Afghanis will continue to fight, even if the Deep State sent aerosol drones loaded with COVID-19 into the hills.
African nations, will continue to resist Europe and the U.S., using armed force however seeded the resistance is with fakey groups and ideologies.
Not all the survivors of Western imperialism, forgot where they came from, like Modi did when he shut down India’s economy to be fashionable with the West.
“Modi seeks ‘forgiveness’ from India’s poor over coronavirus lockdown” – Alexandra Ulmer, Swati Bhat, Reuters, March 29, 2020.
China had reason to believe they faced biological attack; their shutdown had explanation.
All that sh*t because I think you’re downplaying the virus by comparing it to a little cold? Get a god damn grip.
And what the f*ck does this mean?
“COVID-19 is a little cold, entitlement child.”
I don’t mean to downplay your suffering, or that of your father’s, but dammit you both had a chance at the best medical care the First World had to offer, paid for by your employer’s medical benefits.
Millions of Americans suddenly don’t have employer benefits; they’re unemployed and at the mercy of state medicare. They face homelessness and hunger because a few fat cat bureaucrats thought it would be a fun drill to shut down the U.S. and world economy. Over a coronavirus cold.
Over a billion people in the world – 3.9 billion by 2020 figures, assuming ‘half’ remain as they were in 2017 – don’t have access to quality medical coverage, at all.
To them, COVID-19 is just another cold that could kill them.
“World Bank and WHO: Half the world lacks access to essential health services, 100 million still pushed into extreme poverty because of health expenses” – WHO, 13 December 2017
https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/13-12-2017-world-bank-and-who-half-the-world-lacks-access-to-essential-health-services-100-million-still-pushed-into-extreme-poverty-because-of-health-expenses
Entitlement child would be all of us living comfortably in the First World, knowing where our next meal will come from and that we can access medical care if we need it.
You can’t compare your medical experience with the genuinely needy. In this context, COVID-19 is just a little cold.
All Americans, indeed Westerners, are being given a little taste of Third World living, living in fear of government overreach and disease, but its not sinking in to defend their rights any more than those of foreigners except on the fringes.
“You can’t compare your medical experience with the genuinely needy. In this context, COVID-19 is just a little cold.”
I wasn’t doing that, at least not intentionally. I was only trying to make a point that all colds aren’t “little” by using the cancer analogy. I do get your point though.
Sorry if I pushed too hard.
Granted, in full context as being the greatest scam since 9/11, COVID-19 is far from little regardless of its biological footprint.
The first veto comes from the USA.
NATO will need to have a meeting about that.
I’ve always had this pie-in-the-sky notion of an alien invasion where the whole world would call an end to their idiotic wars and band together to fight the common enemy (Covid-19) to humanity but wait, I’m an American… ha, ha,ha, ha. Silly rabbit!