China’s Game in Gaza: How Beijing Is Exploiting Israel’s War to Win Over the Global South

Foreign Affairs so, yes, it has a bias. Author Mark Leonard

Still there are some points of interest. One obvious point made is the lamentable state of US diplomacy. Perhaps better acknowledged as non existent.

China’s Game in Gaza: How Beijing Is Exploiting Israel’s War to Win Over the Global South

The USG is doing a good enough job of ruining its reputation, on the international stage, but let’s blame China! 🤦🏼‍♀️

US Foreign Policy Is a Scam Built on Corruption

US foreign policy seems to be utterly irrational. The US gets into one disastrous war after another — Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, and Gaza. In recent days, the US stands globally isolated in its support of Israel’s genocidal actions against the Palestinians, voting against a UN General Assembly resolution for a Gaza ceasefire backed by 153 countries with 89% of the world population, and opposed by just the US and 9 small countries with less than 1% of the world population.

US Foreign Policy Is a Scam Built on Corruption

Despite Peace Breaking Out in Haiti, Biden Still Calls for “UN-Backed” Invasion

Former foes, neighborhood leaders Jimmy Cherizier and Marc-André Alexandre led a united march against Ariel Henry and in support of the farmers of Ouanaminthe through Port-au-Prince on Sep. 18, 2023.

Over 1,000 people surged through the streets of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince on Sep. 18, calling for de facto Prime Minister Dr. Ariel Henry to step down and shouting their full support of Haitian farmers in the Northeast Department, who are finishing construction of an irrigation canal despite strong objection, threats, and border closure by Dominican President Luis Abinader.

Despite Peace Breaking Out in Haiti, Biden Still Calls for “UN-Backed” Invasion

Previously:

Biden Demands UNSC Approve Invasion of Haiti

Azerbaijan launches operation in Nagorno-Karabakh region

Don DeBar

Azeri forces launched a military operation on Sep 19 in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, resulting in a number of casualties. Armenian state-news agency Armen Press reported:

Azerbaijan launched a bombardment attack against the entire territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, and then started an operation to breach the line of contact to capture positions. Two civilians have been killed, one adult and one child. Another 3 adults and 8 children have been wounded.

Azerbaijan launches operation in Nagorno-Karabakh region

Zelensky to Beg House Speaker McCarthy for More Taxpayer Money, While Biden Bullies Developing Countries to Betray Russia and China

Zelensky arrived in New York on Monday and will head to Washington after the UN General Assembly

House Speaker McCarthy to Meet With Zelensky This Week

Related:

Biden urges UN to not abandon Ukraine

Biden’s call was part of his long-running theme to rally democracies against the globe’s rising autocracies. On Tuesday, he went further, implicitly urging developing nations to turn their backs on Russia and China’s autocracies and join an inter-connected, rules-based order promoted by the U.S. and its allies.

Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, skipped the general assembly, as did China’s Xi Jinping, but Beijing’s presence loomed large on the east side of Manhattan. While much of Biden’s speech read as a pitch to the developing world, its true subject was China, although the president tried to publicly downplay tensions with Beijing, as he did just weeks ago at the G20.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez set to tour Latin America with a group of congressional Democrats 🧐💭

“We have much to learn from our counterparts in these countries, including how to confront disinformation and violent threats to our democracies,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), pictured in April, said of the delegation to Brazil, Chile and Colombia.
(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez set to tour Latin America with a group of congressional Democrats

The agenda (which has not yet been made public) is expected to include meetings with Presidents Lula da Silva (Brazil), Gabriel Boric (Chile) and Gustavo Petro (Colombia) and parliamentary representatives. The legislators will also meet with civil society organizations that work “on the frontlines of ecological transitions, democratic transformations and peace negotiations in the countries,” the delegation explains in a joint statement. The trip seeks to “promote a U.S.-Latin American relationship based on mutual respect, understanding and a commitment to cooperation.”

Ocasio-Cortez, a key figure in the Democratic Party’s most progressive wing, and Misty Rebik, Sanders’s chief of staff (sent on behalf of the 81-year-old veteran senator), will be joined by four congressmen: Joaquin Castro and Greg Casar (both from Texas), Nydia Velázquez (New York) and Maxwell Frost (Florida), who is the youngest congressman in the House of Representatives at 26. Castro is a member of the Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, which is part of the Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee. He recently spearheaded a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken to pressure Peru’s President Dina Boluarte over human rights violations occurring in that country. Casar is in his first term as a congressman and belongs to the Progressive Caucus, while Velazquez became the first Puerto Rican woman to serve in Congress in 1993.

The defense of democracy is another ideal that guides the trip. According to the congresspeople, the “twin” insurrections on Capitol Hill, on January 6, 2021, and in Brasilia (on January 8, 2023) “made it clear that the fate of democracy in the United States is closely tied to that of its southern neighbors. “[Our] democracies,” they believe, “not only share the challenge of defending their institutions from political violence, disinformation and other forms of anti-democratic intervention; they also share the challenge of restoring confidence in the ability of those institutions to meet citizens’ fundamental needs.”

Ocasio-Cortez highlights another goal of the trip: exploring how to “confront disinformation and violent threats to our democracies.” The charismatic congresswoman adds that “it’s long past time for a realignment of the United States’ relationship to Latin America. The U.S. needs to publicly acknowledge the harms we’ve committed through interventionist and extractive policies, and chart a new course based on trust and mutual respect.”

Knives Are Out Again for Those Advocating For Peace on the Korean Peninsula

The knives are out again for those advocating for peace on the Korean Peninsula. Almost eight years to the day, I wrote “The Knives are Out For Those Who Challenge Militarization of the Korean Peninsula,” about Washington Beltway pundits and those on the payroll of organizations and corporations that make money out of the U.S. bureaucracy’s need for an enemy. These groups had focused their outrage and diatribes at Women Cross DMZ for organizing the 2015 trip to North and South Korea and daring to challenge the status quo of US policy toward North Korea.

Knives Are Out Again for Those Advocating For Peace on the Korean Peninsula