#Libyan military

[mikhaila-bobersky]

If that don't work use more gun

[bookloversofbath]

Operation Crusader: Tank Warfare in the Desert Tobruk 1941 :: Hermann Buschleb

[agentfascinateur]

Did the US go against the UN in Libya?

(...) retired Army Brig. Gen. Don Bolduc, who headed Special Operations Command Africa from 2015 to 2017, said that under Obsidian Lotus — a so-called 127e program that allows the U.S. to use foreign troops on U.S.-directed missions targeting America’s enemies to achieve America’s aims — U.S. commandos trained and equipped more than 100 Libyan proxies. Those forces, according to three Libyan military sources and a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, became elite troops within Hifter’s LNA. In 2020, Bolduc described Hifter as a “guy that we could trust.” By the late 2010s, Hifter’s LNA increasingly controlled the east of the country, while the U.N.-backed central government held the west.

#creating chaos

#overthrowing governments

[lightdancer1]

Colonel Gaddafi stands as one of the few people in military history to be on the receiving side of an innovation that ultimately deeply and irreparably embarrassed him:

The Battle of Fada, the culminating point of the Toyota War, is one of the forgotten decisive battles of recent history. It ended for the remainder of the Gaddafi era Libyan efforts to expand into Chad, it profoundly discredit Gaddafi when instead of sponsoring the PLO he had to fight a real war and proved very bad at it. The irony that the same man who set in motion everything leading up to the battle and then went on to lose it has been written as believing the exact opposite of what he actually did should not be lost on anyone.

[mapsontheweb]

Italian concentration camps in Libya (1929 - 1934) 70 thousand died

Firstly a fence along 300,000 miles of the Egyptian border was built in order to cut the supply of primary resources. Shortly after between 100,000 to 110,000 children, women, and elderly people and 600,000 animals were moved to the Sirte desert in concentration camps in Suluq, El Magrun, Abyar and El Agheila where 16 concentration camps had been built.

This destructive period went on from 1929 until 1934. The local population died of starvation, untreated diseases and overall deprivation of support and aid. In addition to starvation and disease, people in the camps were traumatized by the continuous public executions of prisoners and by “marad”. This word describes the physical and psychological trauma caused by the separation of the herds from the seminomad population. In their culture, animal/human unity was essential and seeing that their herds were being left to die of hunger was unbearable. Almost 168,000 animals were captured and killed.

By the end it was estimated that a total number of 60,000 to 70,000 people died. The total number of Libyans who died either through combat or mainly due to starvation and disease is unclear, however, in 1910 the Libyan population was made up of around 1.5 million people while in 1943 it had significantly decreased to 800,000. Ilan Pappé estimates that between 1928 and 1932 the Italian military "killed half the Bedouin population (directly or through disease and starvation in camps)." Italian historian Emilio Gentile estimates 50,000 deaths resulting from the suppression of resistance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_concentration_camps_in_Libya

by Yellowapple1000

[txttletale]

Hi! Do you think you could link me to some resources about the problems/ evils of the EU? Would love to find some but it's hard to know what's reliable when I have no base knowledge in this area + you seem very well informed :)

sure. let's start with what the EU does to its own member states--in 2009, the EU bailed the greek government out of severe debt on the condition that they establish brutal austerity measures, cutting public spending and welfare. these measures served to immiserate and destroy the lives of thousands of greek people:

Greek mortality has worsened significantly since the beginning of the century. In 2000, the death rate per 100,000 people was 944.5. By 2016, it had risen to 1174.9, with most of the increase taking place from 2010 onwards.

[forbes]

Since the implementation of the austerity programme, Greece has reduced its ratio of health-care expenditure to GDP to one of the lowest within the EU, with 50% less public hospital funding in 2015 than in 2009. This reduction has left hospitals with a deficit in basic supplies, while consumers are challenged by transient drug shortages.

[the lancet]

The homeless population is thought to have grown by 25 per cent since 2009, now numbering 20,000 people.

[oxfam]

the most brutal treatment, however, the EU of course reserves for migrants from the global south. the EU sets strict migration quotas and uses its member states as weapons against desperate people fleeing across the mediterranean. boats are prevented from landing, migrants that do make it to land are repelled with brutal violence, and refugees are deported back to countries where their lives are in lethal danger. these policies have led to many, many deaths--and the refugees and migrants who do survive are treating fucking inhumanely.

After a perilous journey across the desert, Abdulaziz was locked up in Triq al-Sikka, a grim prison in Tripoli, Libya. Why? Because the EU pays Libyan militias millions of euros to detain anyone deemed a possible migrant to Europe [...] A leaked EU internal memorandum in 2020 acknowledged that capturing migrants was now “a profitable business model” [...] in Triq al-Sikka and other detention centres, “acts of murder, enslavement, torture, rape and other inhumane acts are committed against migrants”, observed a damning UN report.

[the guardian]

Volunteers have logged more than 27,000 deaths by drowning since 1993, often hundreds at a time when large ships capsize. These account for nearly 80% of all the entries.

[the guardian]

Refugees and asylum seekers were punched, slapped, beaten with truncheons, weapons, sticks or branches, by police or border guards who often removed their ID tags or badges, the committee said in its annual report. People on the move were subject to pushbacks, expulsion from European states, either by land or sea, without having asylum claims heard. Victims were also subject to “inhuman and degrading treatment”, such as having bullets fired close to their bodies while they lay on the ground, being pushed into rivers, sometimes with hands tied, or being forced to walk barefoot or even naked across a border.

[the guardian]

In September, Greece opened a refugee camp on the island of Samos that has been described as prison-like. The €38m (£32m) facility for 3,000 asylum seekers has military-grade fencing and CCTV to track people’s movements. Access is controlled by fingerprint, turnstiles and X-rays. A private security company and 50 uniformed officers monitor the camp. It is the first of five that Greece has planned; two more opened in November.

[the guardian]

i could go on. i could cite dozens more similarly brutal news stories about horrific mistreatment, or any of the dozens of people who have killed themselves in the custody of border police under horrific conditions. the EU is a murderous institution that does not care about the lives of refugees and migrants or about the lives of the citizens of any member state that is not pursuing a vicious enough neoliberal political program

[afriblaq]

BREAKING: Burkina Faso has regained control of its gold mines from a British company, reportedly the largest mining company in Africa. In a significant move, President Ibrahim Traore has announced the nationalization of the gold mine.

In a bold and significant move, Burkina Faso has reclaimed control of two of its major gold mines, marking a shift towards greater resource sovereignty. The Boungou and Wahgnion gold mines, previously owned by an African mining company, have now been nationalized by the Burkinabé government as part of a deal finalized on August 27, 2024. This decision aligns Burkina Faso with a broader trend among African nations, particularly those under military rule, to assert greater control over their natural resources.

The nationalization deal, valued at approximately $80 million, marks a significant turning point in the country’s mining sector. The two gold mines were initially acquired by Lilium, an African mining firm, from the British company Endeavour Mining last year in a transaction worth over $300 million. However, tensions between the companies soon escalated, with Endeavour accusing Lilium of failing to meet payment obligations, while Lilium alleged that Endeavour had misrepresented the financial state of the mines.

This development bears resemblance to the actions of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who nationalized Libya’s oil resources, contributing to the country’s significant economic growth.

[secular-jew]

I keep hearing that, as Muhammad's murderous jihadis crusaded their way across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, the Islamic overlords "respected and even protected their subjects' right to practice their own religion, especially the Jews." If this is respect, I'd hate to see what the bad side of Islamic ethnic cleansing looks like: 622 - 627: Ethnic cleansing of Jews (who comprised roughly 50% of the population of Medina) carried out by Muhammad and his Jihadis. Over 800 Jewish men and boys (based on a pubic hair check), were killed by beheading. Women were forced into sexual slavery, and the children were given to Islamic Jihadis as slaves. Mohammad force-married Safiyyah, after murdering her husband and father.

629: 1st Alexandria Massacres of Jews, Egypt.

622 - 634: Exterminations of Arabian Jewish tribes.

1033: 1st massacre of Jews in Fez, Morocco.

1066: Granada Massacre of Jews, Muslim-occupied Spain.

1106: Ali Ibn Yousef Ibn Tashifin of Marrakesh decrees death penalty for any local Jew, including his Jewish Physician, and as well as his Jewish military general.

1148: Almohadin of Morocco gives Jews the choice of converting to Islam, or expulsion.

1165 - 1178: Jews of Yemen given the choice (under new constitution) to either convert to Islam or die.

1165: Chief Rabbi of the Maghreb was publicly burnt alive. The Rambam (Maimonides, Moses ben Maimon), forced to flee Spain to Egypt.

1220: Tens of thousands of Jews massacred by Muslims Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, after being blamed for Mongol invasion.

1270: Sultan Baibars of Egypt resolved to burn all the Jews, a ditch having been dug for that purpose; but at the last moment he repented, and instead exacted a heavy tribute, during the collection of which many perished.

1276: 2nd Fez Pogrom (massacre) against Jews in Morocco

1385: Khorasan Massacres against Jews in Iran

1438: 1st Mellah Ghetto massacres against Jews in Morocco

1465: 3rd Fez Pogrom against Jews in Morocco, leaving only 11 Jews left alive

1517: 1st Safed Pogrom in Muslim Ottoman controlled Judea

1517: 1st Hebron Pogrom in Muslim-controlled Judea, by occupying Ottomans

1517: Marsa ibn Ghazi Massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Libya

1577: Passover Massacre throughout the Ottoman Empire

1588 - 1629: Mahalay Pogroms of Jews in Iran

1630 - 1700: Yemenite Jews considered 2nd class citizens and subjugated under strict Shi'ite 'dhimmi' rules

1660: 2nd Judean Pogrom, in Safed Israel (Ottoman-controlled Palestine)

1670: Expulsion of Mawza Jews in Yemen

1679 - 1680: Massacres of Jews in Sanaa, Yemen

1747: Massacres of the Jews of Mashhad, Iran

1785: Pogrom of Libyan Jews in Ottoman-controlled Tripoli, Libya

1790 - 92: Tetuan Pogrom. Morocco (Jews of Tetuan stripped naked, and lined up for Muslim perverts)

1800: Decree passed in Yemen, criminalizing Jews from wearing clothing that is new or good, or from riding mules or donkeys. Jews were also rounded up for long marches naked through the Roob al Khali dessert

1805: 1st Algiers Massacre/Pogrom of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Algeria

1808: 2nd Ghetto Massacres in Mellah, Morocco

1815: 2nd Algiers massacres/pogroms of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Algeria

1820: Sahalu Lobiant Massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Syria

1828: Baghdad massacres/pogroms of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Iraq

1830: 3rd massacre/pogrom of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Algiers, Algeria

1830: Ethnic cleansing of Jews in Tabriz, Iran

1834: 2nd massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Hebron, Judea

1834: Massacre/pogrom of Safed Jews in Ottoman-controlled Palestine/Judea

1839: Massacre of the Mashadi Jews in Iran

1840: Damascus Affair following first of many blood libels against Jews in Ottoman-controlled Syria

1844: 1st Cairo Massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Egypt.

1847: Dayr al-Qamar massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Lebanon

1847: Ethnic cleansing of the Jews in Jerusalem, Ottoman-controlled Palestine

1848: 1st Damascus massacre/pogrom, in Ottoman-controlled Syria

1850: 1st Aleppo massacre/pogrom of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Syria

1860: 2nd Damascus massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Syria

1862: 1st Beirut massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Lebanon

1866: Massacre of Jews by Ottomans Kuzguncuk, Turkey

1867: Massacre of Jews by Ottomans in Barfurush, Turkey

1868: Massacre of Jews by Ottomans in Eyub, Turkey

1869: Massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Tunis, Tunisia

1869: Massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Sfax, Tunisia

1864 - 1880: Massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Marrakesh, Morocco

1870: 2nd Alexandria Massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Egypt

1870: 1st Istanbul massacre of Jews in Ottoman Turkey

1871: 1st Damanhur Massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Egypt

1872: Massacre of Jews by Ottomans in Edirne, Turkey

1872: 1st Massacre of Jews by Ottomans in Izmir, Turkey

1873: 2nd Damanhur Massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Egypt

1874: 2nd Izmir massacre of Jews in Turkey

1874: 2nd massacre of Jews in Istanbul Turkey

1874: 2nd massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Beirut, Lebanon

1875: 2nd massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Aleppo, Syria

1875: Massacre of Jews in Djerba Island, Ottoman-controlled Tunisia

1877: 3rd massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Damanhur, Egypt

1877: Massacres of Jews in Mansura, Ottoman-controlled Egypt

1882: Massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Homs, Syria

1882: 3rd Massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Alexandria, Egypt.

1890: 2nd massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Cairo, Egypt.

1890: 3rd massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Damascus, Syria.

1890: 2nd massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Tunis, Tunisia

1891: 4th massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Damanahur, Egypt.

1897: Targeted murder of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Tripolitania, Libya.

1903 &1907: Massacres of Hews in Ottoman-controlled Taza & Settat, Morocco.

1901 - 1902: 3rd set of massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Cairo, Egypt.

1901 - 1907: 4th set of Massacres of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Alexandria, Egypt.

1903: 1st massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Port Sa'id, Egypt.

1903 - 1940: Series of massacres in Taza and Settat, Morocco.

1907: Massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Casablanca, Morocco.

1908: 2nd Massacre of Jews in Ottoman-controlled Port Said, Egypt.

1910: Blood libel against Jews in Shiraz, Iran.

1911: Massacre of Jews by Muslims in Shiraz, Iran.

1912: 4th massacre in Ottoman-controlled Fez, Morocco.

1917: Baghdad Iraq Jews murdered by Ottomans.

1918 - 1948: Yemen passes a law criminalizing the raising of a Jewish orphan in Yemen.

1920: Massacres of Jews in Irbid Jordan (British mandate Palestine).

1920 - 1930: Arab riots resulting in hundreds of Jewish deaths, British mandate Palestine.

1921: 1st Jaffa (Israel) riots, British mandate Palestine.

1922: Massacres of Jews in Djerba, Tunisia.

1928: Jewish orphans sold into slavery, and forced to nvert to Islam by Muslim Brotherhood, Yemen.

1929: 3rd Hebron (Israel) massacre of Jews by Arabs in British mandate Palestine.

1929 3rd massacre of Jews by Arabs in Safed (Israel), British mandate Palestine.

1933: 2nd Jaffa (Israel) riots, British mandate Palestine.

1934: Massacre of Jews in Thrace, Turkey.

1936: 3rd riots by Arabs against Jews in Jaffa (Israel), British mandate Palestine.

1941: Massacres of Jews in Farhud, Iraq.

1942: Muslim leader Grand Mufti collaboration with the Nazis, playing a major role in the final solution.

1938 - 1945: Full alliance and collaboration by Arabs with the Nazis in attacking and murdering Jews in the Middle East and Africa.

1945: 4th massacre of Jews by Muslims in Cairo, Egypt.

1945: Massacre of Jews in Tripolitania, Libya.

1947: Massacre of Jews by Muslims in Aden, Yemen.

2023: Massacre, rape, torture and kidnapping of ~1,500 Israelis (mostly Jews) by Muslims in numerous towns throughout southern Israel.

[whencyclopedia]

Dido

Queen Dido (aka Elissa, from Elisha, or Alashiya, her Phoenician name) was a legendary Queen of Tyre in Phoenicia who was forced to flee the city with a loyal band of followers. Sailing west across the Mediterranean she founded the city of Carthage c. 813 BCE and later fell in love with the Trojan hero and founder of the Roman people Aeneas. The tale of Dido is most famously recounted in Virgil's Aeneid but she appeared in the works of many other ancient writers both before and after.

Dido & Pygmalion

The earliest surviving mention of the founding myth of Carthage appears in the work of Timaeus of Taormina, a Greek historian (c. 350-260 BCE) whose original texts do not survive but which are referred to by later authors. Timaeus was the first to present the foundation of Carthage as occurring in either 814 or 813 BCE. An additional source on the historical Elissa is Josephus, the 1st century CE historian, who quotes Menandros of Ephesus' list of 10th-9th century BCE Tyrian kings, which includes mention of an Elissa, sister of Pygmalion (Pumayyaton), who founded Carthage in the seventh year of that king's reign.

The most famous version of the Dido story, though, is found in Virgil's Aeneid. The 1st-century BCE Roman writer describes Dido as a daughter of Belus, the King of the Tyre in Phoenicia. We are told that her Phoenician name was Elissa but the Libyans gave her the new name Dido, meaning 'wanderer'. Virgil recounts that Dido's brother, Pygmalion, cheated his sister out of her inheritance and then, in order to keep the throne of Tyre, killed Dido's husband Sychaeus. In another version, Dido married Acherbas (Zakarbaal), her uncle and priest of Melqart (or Baal) who was similarly executed by Pygmalion to acquire his wealth. Dido then fled the city with a loyal following (which included the military commanders Bitias and Barcas) and a hoard of the king's gold to sail west and a new life.

Continue reading...

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Jake Wallis Simons

The Gray Lady even contrasted the two incidents in a way that painted the American atrocity favourably while casting Israeli intentions in doubt. The Kabul attack, it said, ‘came after a suicide bombing killed at least 182 people, including 13 American troops, during the frantic American withdrawal from the country. Under acute pressure to avert another attack, the US military believed it was tracking a terrorist who might imminently detonate another bomb. Instead, it killed an Afghan aid worker and nine members of his family.’

The Gaza strike, however, ‘adds fuel to accusations that Israel has bombed indiscriminately’, the New York Times said, pre-empting the results of the independent investigation with breathless speculation and a healthy dose of ‘confirmation bias’ of its own. The assumption could not be clearer: whereas the Americans were acting out of panic and confusion, the Israelis were either acting out of disregard for human life or straightforward bloodlust.

Civilian deaths, including those of aid workers, are a tragic reality of modern warfare. Sixty-two humanitarian workers lost their lives in combat zones last year. Although they were mostly killed at the hands of autocratic regimes and militias, during wartime they are also the casualties of democracies, including Britain.

During the Libyan civil war in 2011, when David Cameron had his hands on the joystick, 13 people were killed by a NATO airstrike, including an ambulance driver, three nurses and some friendly troops. (He did not, surprisingly, subject his own government to the type of rhetoric that he has recently been levelling at the Israelis over the mistaken Gaza strike.) That same week, NATO wiped out a family near Ajdabiya in the north of the country. This year, even the Danish military was forced to admit that its aerial assault had claimed the lives of 14 Libyan civilians.

The difference between attitudes towards most Western armed forces and the Israelis could not be sharper. According to the UN, the average combatant-to-civilian death ratio in war around the world is one to nine. When Britain, America and our allies battled Islamic State in Mosul in 2016-17, we achieved a much more respectable rate of about one to 2.5. In Gaza, Israel has done better still, reaching about one to 1.5, and possibly even less.

[blueiscoool]

Sword with Markings of Ancient Pharaoh Ramses II Unearthed in Egypt

Archaeologists unearthed a series of mudbrick rooms filled with religious tributes, soldiers’ personal effects, engraved weaponry and animal bones.

Researchers have discovered a 3,200-year-old Egyptian fort filled with archaeological treasures. Located at the Tell Al-Abqain excavation site in northwest Egypt, the buried structure contained religious tributes, military barracks and a bronze sword inscribed with the name of the pharaoh Ramses II.

The fort was unearthed during ongoing excavations at Tell Al-Abqain. A team led by Ahmed El Kharadly, an archaeologist with Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, found a series of mudbrick architectural units in the area, according to a statement from the ministry.

Those buildings, or barracks, contained a trove of artifacts, including the necessities and personal effects of the soldiers stationed there during Egypt’s New Kingdom era, a period of prosperity, territorial expansion and peace that lasted from around 1550 to 1077 B.C.E. The barracks show the military power Egypt expended to grow and defend its territory during this time.

“It is an important discovery highlighting the strategic role of Tell Al-Abqain area as a crucial military outpost on the western military road, protecting Egypt’s northwestern borders from potential invasions by Libyan tribes and sea peoples,” Mohamed Ismail Khaled, secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, tells Ahram Online’s Nevine El-Aref.

The barracks’ advanced architectural layout exemplifies the engineering talents of the ancient Egyptian builders, who skillfully harnessed the existing landscape for military objectives, Khaled adds.

At the site, researchers also found granaries, cow burials and pottery containing fish bones. In ancient Egypt, cows were “revered as celestial deities” and symbols of “strength, abundance and prosperity,” per the statement. However, these specific burials indicate that soldiers likely ate the cows: The bovine remains were found in an area near an oven, “which confirms that they were probably divided into parts and then stored in silos after drying,” El Kharadly tells Live Science’s Owen Jarus.

Along with evidence of soldiers’ daily provisions, researchers found accessories and toiletries, like ivory applicators for kohl eyeliner, necklaces of carnelian and faience beads shaped like pomegranate blossoms, and scarabs engraved with deities’ names, per the statement. The archaeologists also found two limestone blocks, one inscribed with the name of an official, “Bay,” and the other mentioning Ramses.

The pharaoh Ramses II, or Ramses the Great, ruled Egypt from 1279 to 1213 B.C.E., as the third king of the 19th Dynasty. Nicknamed the “builder pharaoh,” Ramses commissioned many temples during his reign, ensuring a lasting legacy. The newly discovered barracks also illustrate his sprawling influence.

One of the most intriguing discoveries was a bronze sword engraved with the cartouche of Ramses, or hieroglyphs arranged in an oval representing his name. Its presence suggests the fort was an important site during the pharaoh’s reign, per Ahram Online.

The barracks are an “important discovery” illuminating Egypt’s military strategy during Ramses’ rule, as Peter Brand, a historian at the University of Memphis who wasn’t involved in the excavation, tells Live Science.

“The weaponry demonstrates the place was well armed and may even have been able to produce some weapons on site,” Brand adds. The bronze sword was “likely given to a high-ranking officer as a royal reward. … The king’s name and titles engraved on it increased the prestige of its owner and ‘advertised’ the [king’s] wealth, power and generosity.”

By Sonja Anderson.

[marxistcomedy]

Anyone working in counter-propaganda can testify to a curious experience: we’ll put in hours of careful research collecting an impeccable set of resources that undermines some warmongering narrative, and we’ll eagerly share it with someone who claims to despise racism in all its forms — say, an outspoken opponent of the West’s so-called “War on Terror.” Unexpectedly, we are met with a response that is somewhere between chilly reticence and downright hostility. What’s going on?

From our perspective, we’re offering water to a person who’s self-identified as thirsty, and yet they react as if we were trying to poison them! They turn on a dime to defend the same institutions whose lies they were denouncing just moments before. At this point the sense of pride and accomplishment that comes from seeing through propaganda and putting puzzle pieces together into a satisfying historical account gets brutally transformed into its exact opposite: a sense of crushing defeat. In response to this bitter experience, many researchers — serious people, with plenty of experience reading and writing, and sometimes even of being published! — lash out. They decide that people have been “brainwashed” beyond the point where they can be reached by words or rational appeal. They “realize” that the masters of propaganda have been far more successful than we first imagined: it turns out we’re not David fighting Goliath, we’re more like an ant facing an asteroid.

The same inquisitive nature that first led them to unravel war propaganda narratives begins to feed an even larger psycho-historical narrative, and nihilism takes hold. The tragic cycle begins to appear eternal: innocent, well-meaning, hard-working folks are, time and again, viciously tricked by the scapegoating of a new rogue in the gallery — Indigenous, Black, Spanish, Jewish, Soviet, Vietnamese, Cuban, Serbian, Muslim, Libyan, Syrian, Korean, Venezuelan, Russian, Chinese. Due to the sheer power of propaganda and mass-media, the masses helplessly fall for hatred and volunteer for war, even though it comes at a very high cost to ourselves, our loved ones, and our ideals (religion, environmentalism, etc.). Sadly, the innate human propensity to “hate the Other” seals our fate as a society… or something along those lines.

I am going to argue that this narrative is nonsense. It tries to pass off as universal and eternal something that in reality is particular and ephemeral. In short: Westerners aren’t helpless innocents whose minds are injected with atrocity propaganda, science fiction-style; they’re generally smug bourgeois proletarians who intelligently seek out as much racist propaganda as they can get their hands on. This is because it fundamentally makes them feel better about who they are and how they live. The psychic and material costs are rationally worth the benefits. As for those anti-imperialists who don’t participate in this festival of xenophobia — and here I include myself — we have our own elitist consolation: we accept the tragedy of masses of gullible sheeple falling for cunning propaganda because having overcome it flatters our own intelligence. The more we condemn society’s stupidity, the smarter we feel in comparison.

But am I not just worsening the problem, aggravating our hopelessness, by criticizing the critics in a way that suggests that no one escapes ideological self-flattery? I don’t think so. Paradoxically, it brings us all back to a more even and possibility-rich playing field.

The prevailing populist narrative grants the People (of the West) moral innocence by attributing to them utter stupidity and naivety; I invert the equation and demand a Marxist narrative instead: Westerners are willingly complicit in crimes because they instinctively and correctly understand that they benefit as a class (as a global bourgeois proletariat) from the exploitation enabled by their military and their propaganda (in Gramscian: organs of coercion and consent). We’re not as stupid as we’re made out to be. This means that we can be reasoned with, that there is a way out.

[emphasis mine]

[vintagerpg]

Year of the Phoenix (1986, no relation to Phoenix Command) was the last RPG published by Fantasy Games Unlimited before they shuttered. It represents one of the stranger military RPGs to come out in the ‘80s. Actually, in all honesty, this is basically a percentile skill-based system and not deeply preoccupied with the minutia of tactical small arms combat, so I dunno if it is technically a military RPG. On the other hand, combat is still annoyingly complicated and features ten hit locations (four more than RuneQuest), so, pretty heavy. Again, though, I don’t really care about these as games, I am interested in how they are weird jingoisticly infected artifacts of Cold War-era gaming. And boy, is Year of the Phoenix that.

There’s an elaborate set-up here. Players make their characters as members of a near-future space program. They go up in the rocket to deal with a hostage situation on a space station and the Libyans (of course) detonate a bomb, after which they come down in the year 2197. Guess what? While they were gone, the USSR won World War III and took over North America. Their grip isn’t tight, and there are plenty of resistance groups to join, which the players presumably do, and the game goes from there. The vision of the future is…naive. It could maybe be fun if you got rid of stuff like the fact that resistance in the southern states is a reborn Confederacy and the implication that all this happened because of “godlessness.” For instance: it is revealed at the end of the introductory adventure that some folks on Staten Island have the Statue of Liberty hidden in a secret underground bunker?

I dunno, its hard to take it all seriously and is sort of baffling it exists at all. And it is a pretty elaborate product, especially for an FGU game, with cardstock counters and a color map. What a one for a company to go out on.

[lightdancer1]

The third war was the Libyan invasion of Chad:

The last of the three wars is the Libyan invasion of Chad, which ended with the Toyota War. This war also points to a key difference between the real Muammar Gaddafi and the person that posterity and useful idiots try to make him into being.

Namely that instead of some pan-Africanist anti-racist Gaddafi was a fascist Arab nationalist who believed Arabs were culturally and morally superior to Black Africans and waged the war first for a narrow strip of land and then to expand his power as far into Chad as he could reach.....and then it turned out that things didn't go very well because the Chadians improvised and routed him at the Battle of Fada, exposing the hollowness of Gaddafi the man versus that of Gaddafi the myth.

[readingsquotes]

"When the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) announced he was seeking arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas leaders, he issued a cryptic warning: “I insist that all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence the officials of this court must cease immediately.”

...Now, an investigation by the Guardian and the Israeli-based magazines +972 and Local Call can reveal how Israel has run an almost decade-long secret “war” against the court. The country deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil, hack, pressure, smear and allegedly threaten senior ICC staff in an effort to derail the court’s inquiries.

Israeli intelligence captured the communications of numerous ICC officials, including Khan and his predecessor as prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, intercepting phone calls, messages, emails and documents.

..

Since it was established in 2002, the ICC has served as a permanent court of last resort for the prosecution of individuals accused of some of the world’s worst atrocities. It has charged the former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, the late Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi and most recently, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

Khan’s decision to seek warrants against Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, along with Hamas leaders implicated in the 7 October attack, marks the first time an ICC prosecutor has sought arrest warrants against the leader of a close western ally.

The allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity that Khan has levelled against Netanyahu and Gallant all relate to Israel’s eight-month war in Gaza, which according to the territory’s health authority has killed more than 35,000 people.

...

Hacked emails and monitored calls

Five sources familiar with Israel’s intelligence activities said it routinely spied on the phone calls made by Bensouda and her staff with Palestinians. Blocked by Israel from accessing Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the ICC was forced to conduct much of its research by telephone, which made it more susceptible to surveillance.

Thanks to their comprehensive access to Palestinian telecoms infrastructure, the sources said, intelligence operatives could capture the calls without installing spyware on the ICC official’s devices.

“If Fatou Bensouda spoke to any person in the West Bank or Gaza, then that phone call would enter [intercept] systems,” one source said. Another said there was no hesitation internally over spying on the prosecutor, adding: “With Bensouda, she’s black and African, so who cares?”. ......

One of the sources said the Shin Bet even installed Pegasus spyware, developed by the private-sector NSO Group, on the phones of multiple Palestinian NGO employees, as well as two senior Palestinian Authority officials.

Keeping tabs on the Palestinian submissions to the ICC’s inquiry was viewed as part of the Shin Bet’s mandate, but some army officials were concerned that spying on a foreign civilian entity crossed a line, as it had little to do with military operations.

“It has nothing to do with Hamas, it has nothing to do with stability in the West Bank,” one military source said of the ICC surveillance. Another added: “We used our resources to spy on Fatou Bensouda – this isn’t something legitimate to do as military intelligence.”

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Three sources briefed on Cohen’s activities said they understood the spy chief had tried to recruit Bensouda into complying with Israel’s demands during the period in which she was waiting for a ruling from the pre-trial chamber.

They said he became more threatening after he began to realise the prosecutor would not be persuaded to abandon the investigation. At one stage, Cohen is said to have made comments about Bensouda’s security and thinly veiled threats about the consequences for her career if she proceeded.