ROGER BOYD—You would expect some substance from a person that could be a heart beat away from being president of the United States, but then we have J. D. Vance. He was born in Middletown Ohio in 1984, and he has written that his childhood was one of poverty, abuse and his mother’s drug addiction; being raised mainly by his maternal grandparents. In 2003, after graduating from high school, he joined the US Marine Corp in the non-combat role of military journalist, including six months in Iraq in 2005. Working to all intents and purposes in the public affairs section of the US Marine Corp, Vance would have become experienced in how to put stories together that hide much of the truth and weave stories that humanize what is an elite killing machine.
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EDITORS—For the past 10 months, Gaza’s Palestinians have faced what can be described as a war of extermination, with the Israeli occupation targeting all facets of Palestinian life and systematically eliminating resistance leaders both domestically and abroad.
Thus, the announcement of Yahya Sinwar’s election as Haniyeh’s successor in Gaza was both a surprise to the Israeli occupation and a cause for celebration among Palestinians and their factions.
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EDITOR—Israel has long had a beef with Iran, the only nation in the Gulf capable and willing to stand up to its crimes and provocations. The events of 10/7, which some regard as a false flag designed to allow Israel to carry out a systematic genocide of Palestinians (with open encouragement and support by the US empire), have also sharpened the conflict with Tehran, triggering a dangerous cycle of Israeli aggressions and Iranian well-measured escalatory responses, which have now put the two nations on the brink of an all-out war. Some analysts suggest that the US, despite its “pro-peace” mask, and using “plausible deniability”, is actually pushing Israel to lead the way in the military conquest of Lebanon, Hezbollah, Iran and other parties of the “Axis of Resistance”. The panel is however dubious about the seriousness of Tel-Aviv’s thirst for a major war with Iran, and so is Iran for that matter. Everyone has much to lose in this confrontation, which could easily get out of hand and escalate to WW3 dimensions and complete economic collapse. Israel—despite its bellicosity, born of a sense of impunity given its close connection with the US and Britain—is extremely vulnerable to an Iranian attack on its infrastructure, as Iran could easily destroy its desalination plants, electricity stations and other vital resources. While the US is clearly the main force behind the Palestinians’ genocide and the expansion of Israeli territorial ambitions, the US ruling class, itself pathetically led at this point, and fractured into several factions with different priorities and imperialist approaches, seems unsure about the consequences of a regional and possibly global war with the multipolar alliance.
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SL KANTHAN—Americans do not realize that they live in an oligarchic and kleptocratic system where politicians are bought and paid for by large corporations. Thus, Americans keep falling for fake elections and staged drama, even though the life of an average American has gotten worse consistently over the last five decades. Similarly, Americans keep supporting perpetual wars and a vast empire of 800 international military bases, because they naively believe the recycled war propaganda.
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ALASTAIR CROOKE—John Kerry, just last week at the World Economic Forum, so clearly blurting out the truth: “Our First Amendment stands as a major block to our ability to be able to hammer [disinformation] out of existence”. Translated: Governing is all about narrative control. Kerry articulates the ‘International Order’s’ solution to the unwelcome phenomenon of an uncontrolled populism and of a potential leader who speaks for the people: Simply, ‘freedom to speak’ is unacceptable to the prescriptions agreed by the ‘inter-agency’ – the institutionalised distillation of the ‘International Order’.
