Re: Brian, read the SMH article - here it is

On Thu, 28 Nov 2024 00:12:09 -0000, slider <[email protected]>
wrote:

>On Sat, 23 Nov 2024 01:32:01 -0000, He Who Sees All  
><[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>
>> https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/the-age-of-the-carnivores-is-upon-us-china-russia-and-their-war-machine-20241118-p5krgh.html
>>
>>
>> There's no point at all in fruitlessly commenting on something before
>> actually reading it.
>>
>> Here's the text:
>>
>>
>> "The world is “made up of herbivores and carnivores”, French President
>> Emmanuel Macron said in a speech this month. Europe, he said, was a
>> plant-eater. And the meat-eaters are circling.
>>
>> Until now, most Western nations have been content to live peaceful
>> lives with minimal military capability because the biggest of them has
>> offered to protect the others by maintaining a war-like vigilance.
>> That, of course, was the US.
>>
>> Under the eagle’s wing, post-war Europe and Japan became so relaxed
>> that they adopted a pacifist stance. They relinquished any effective
>> offensive combat capability to the point where they were declared to
>> be the world’s first “postmodern” states, together with New Zealand,
>> which sheltered behind Australia, in the categorisation by the British
>> diplomat Robert Cooper. These pacifists were full herbivores.
>>
>> But almost all Western democracies, including Australia and Canada,
>> also allowed themselves to stand down. Their statecraft and their
>> defence forces operated on the assumption that war between the great
>> powers was an artefact of history and if anything went wrong, America
>> would deal with it. “People sleep peaceably in their beds at night
>> only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf,”
>> according to a quote attributed to George Orwell. America was the
>> rough man of the West.
>>
>> The West’s enemies fell into a sullen survival mode. But they did not
>> lose their appetites for the red meat of history – the urge to attack,
>> butcher and digest the territories of their neighbours.
>>
>> That era is over. America’s will has wilted, and its enemies sense
>> opportunity. When Syria’s Bashar al-Assad crossed Barack Obama’s “red
>> line” against chemical weapons use in 2013, and Obama did nothing in
>> response, it whetted the appetites of the four greatest predators of
>> the international system. Russia annexed Crimea the next year and
>> still Obama did nothing meaningful, so the annexation became merely
>> the prelude to Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
>>
>> Emergency workers extinguish a fire following a Russian rocket attack
>> in Lviv, Ukraine, on Sunday.
>> Emergency workers extinguish a fire following a Russian rocket attack
>> in Lviv, Ukraine, on Sunday.Credit:Ukrainian Emergency Service/AP
>>
>> China activated its salami-slicing encroachments to seize territories
>> that were also claimed by half a dozen of its neighbours and launched
>> the world’s greatest military build-up since World War II. North Korea
>> revived its ambition to conquer Seoul. Iran’s revolution negotiated
>> with the West over its nuclear program while continuing to arm its
>> proxies against Israel.
>>
>> These four predators have been grouped under a new acronym: CRINKs,
>> for China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. America’s Politico outlet
>> dubbed it “the new axis of evil”.
>>
>> Today, 1000 days since Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to strike
>> Kyiv, we can see clearly that history has entered a new phase. These
>> four have come together in a war of territorial conquest. Russia’s war
>> on Ukraine has become a carnivores’ picnic.
>>
>> China has become the main financier of the Russian economy by stepping
>> up to buy 215 billion euros’ worth of its fossil fuel exports since
>> the invasion began, according to the Finnish non-profit Centre for
>> Research on Energy and Clean Air. China is the “decisive enabler” of
>> Russia’s war effort, according to a NATO summit communique, by
>> supplying industrial machinery and semiconductors and other
>> technology.
>>
>> Iran has given Russia 8000 Shahed drones, each carrying a payload of
>> 50 kilograms of explosives, and has delivered the first of hundreds of
>> promised Fath 360 ballistic missiles, according to the Pentagon. North
>> Korea has sent 13,000 containers of weaponry to Russia, including 8
>> million artillery shells, missiles and anti-tank rockets, according to
>> South Korea’s National Intelligence Service.
>>
>> And now North Korea has ordered at least 12,000 of its combat troops
>> to Russia. Just over two weeks ago, on November 4, they engaged in
>> their first firefight with Ukrainian troops, according to the US State
>> Department. They are the first foreign combat forces to enter the war.
>>
>> In a speech on Friday, North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, urged his
>> troops to “go all out” in fighting Ukraine, according to Pyongyang’s
>> news service. Over the weekend, The Financial Times published a
>> Ukrainian intelligence report that North Korea has given Russia “some
>> 50 domestically produced 170mm M1989 self-propelled howitzers and 20
>> updated 240mm multiple launch rocket systems”.
>>
>> CRINKs is no longer just an acronym. It now describes a group of
>> nations engaged jointly in waging a war of aggression.
>>
>> In an apparent response to the North Korean entry into the war, Joe
>> Biden has released Ukraine from a key US-imposed restraint, it emerged
>> on Monday. Until now, America supplied its HIMARS – high mobility
>> artillery rocket system – to Ukraine on condition that it not be used
>> against targets inside Russia. This was imposed to limit escalation.
>> Biden now has freed Kyiv to hit Russia directly with a system capable
>> of firing missiles up to 300 kilometres into its territory. Britain
>> and France are expected to lift similar restraints on the missiles
>> they supplied to Ukraine.
>>
>> Wesley Clark, a former US army general and commander of the NATO
>> forces, told CNN that this newfound Ukrainian freedom is “too little,
>> too late” materially to change the course of the war but that it would
>> be a useful bargaining chip in any ceasefire negotiations.
>>
>> A central question for the global jungle is what the incoming US
>> president will do. Will Donald Trump support the US allies – mostly
>> herbivores – confronting aggression, or will he side with America’s
>> traditional enemies – the carnivores?
>>
>> World leaders issue warning to Trump on trade, but not by name
>> The US is increasingly an unpredictable and unreliable protector.
>> While the CRINKs moved earlier to take advantage, the herbivores
>> finally have got the message. In the past few years, US allies have
>> started to sharpen their claws and bare their fangs. In Macron’s
>> metaphor, he wants the herbivores of Europe to, at the very least,
>> become omnivores, he said.
>>
>> US allies have stepped up their defence budgets and increasingly
>> started to herd together for protection. Australia’s Northern
>> Territory showcased the latest development in this trend at the
>> weekend when Japanese troops joined US forces for the annual US Marine
>> rotation. This is set to be an annual event.
>>
>> The meat-eaters are hunting in a pack. The eagle is no longer a
>> reliable protector. The age of carnivores is upon us."
>
>### - it's basically as i said/suggested; an article one could predictably  
>read just about anywhere out there currently via western media, the  
>emphasis on predator/carnivore being only the latest twist on the  
>good/evil paradigm everyone is otherwise jaded with hearing, all of it,  
>however, persistently emphasising the exact same picture of an 'evil  
>empire' and/or 'axis' of evil' aimed at a particular racial target in  
>people's minds, such is the very nature of propaganda and how it's  
>designed to work + keep that shit up for 70+ years and people grow up  
>believing it all!
>
>i.e., thus the smh should change its name to 'the daily brainwash' for all  
>the objective news it's actually reporting, it being exactly the same here  
>of course; the bbc making a really big deal out of objective, unbiased  
>reporting, whole shows dedicated to it being so, literally, and yet still  
>droning-on in the same old tone of the 'evil' russians + reinforcing such  
>ideas with examples of the damage they've reputedly done, only ukraine's  
>side of things reported (perforce all negative) and verified by the bbc to  
>have occurred, meanwhile all/any russian media or accounts of the matter  
>is totally banned here haha... don't you get it yet?
>
>this is why reversals often work to clarify matters, not everything and  
>not always, but propaganda is one subject wherein it nearly always works  
>to reveal more than we're being told/instructed to think/believe... all of  
>it simplified to the battle between good & evil, right & wrong, with us or  
>against us, those with god on their side and those on the side of the  
>devil: the disney version of life, the universe & everything, which, for  
>most people - let's face it - it is!
>
>outsiders, however (and have always considered you to be one), providing  
>they don't just go nuts that is (coz sadly many do), remain objective...  
>first by insisting on always hearing 'both' sides of any argument, and  
>then by realising that both sides are ultimately exactly the same in  
>believing their own narratives, even if/when those narratives lead to  
>war...
>
>unfortunately, the world is owned/run by wealthy gangsters, all determined  
>to maintain & increase that wealth before anything else and woa betide  
>anyone/anything that gets in their way, which then sets the pace for  
>everything else that happens...

What entitled bloody hogwash.

Who do you think you are?  The news is - you're nothing special mate,
just run of the mill.

At least develop a reality-based response, or viewpoint, or indivudual
Weltanschauung.  Stop the nonsense, if you'll excuse me for saying.