Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Kyle Riitenhouse - a killer who's learned nothing

I don't think you invite killers to speak on a college campus -- not even for a 'scared straight' program.  I'm sorry but Kyle Rittenhouse is a killer.  He was underage at the time and I didn't call for his head on a stick.  But the reality is that he killed people.  The reality is also that he might have thought it was self-defense but it was not self-defense.

My hope for him was that he would learn from the moment.  He would see the verdict as a gift that most people do not ever get.  He says he's not a racist.  I believed him on that until this week.  If he wants people to ever respect him, he needs to take accountability for his actions and for the deaths he caused.  

Thus far, he has not.  He has tried to make himself a media celebrity.  That showed no reflection.

So he went to speak at a college -- I think it was Kent State.  He shouldn't have been on the campus.  He's a killer with no remorse and has nothing worth sharing.  The fact that anyone can speak on a campus does not mean that anyone should.

At the event, he was confronted with how his 'guru' is a racist.  That's not news.  Charlie Kirk is a racist.  What happened after that?  Rittenhouse gave some mealy mouthed answers and then walked off.  Some said he was emotional.

I don't believe he was.  I think they might have thought he was.  But Kyle has two facial expressions.  When he's not smiling, he has this confused look where he appears to be saying, "Is it in yet?"  Or, I guess, not saying, but asking his boyfriend, "Is it in yet?"  Then his second look is when he smiles and appears to be saying, "Oh, you're pubic bush feels so nice against my rear end."  He really seems disconnected from his facial expressions which is why I would give him the benefit of the doubt regarding his looking emotional.


That said, according to a NEWSWEEK article carried by THE FRESNO BEE, he defended and praised Charlie Kirk after the event.  That would go to the fact that Rittenhouse is a racist.  He was presented with proof and chose to ignore it.

I also laughed at this in the article:


"Furthermore, there's important context as to why the event was disrupted in the first place. The school forced a day-of, last-minute ticketing system change, forcing the local chapter to use the school's proprietary ticketing system after agreeing to allow us to use our own. The protester groups were tipped off of when the new tickets would be made available, so they reserved nearly all of them so they could interrupt, sabotage, and eventually stage a walk out. 
"We had thousands of people who wanted to come to this event who were unable to because of the ticketing change done in the name of 'fairness and equity,' but the school's complicity in empowering bad faith agitators is why Mr. Rittenhouse spoke to a room of protesters."


It's a campus event.  Seating isn't reserved.  I don't care if you wanted to pack the meet-up with conservatives or not.  That's not something you have the right to do.  It's taking place on a campus and those who want to attend will, first come, first serve.

What a stupid and whiny bunch of supporters Kyle Rittenhouse has.


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Tuesday, March 26, 2024.  A UN report finds that the actions of the Israeli government are meeting the legal defined acts that qualify for an assault to be ruled a genocide, the UN Security Council votes for a cease-fire, the Israeli government continues to attack hospitals in Gaza, and much more.



This morning, THE NATIONAL reports:

A UN report investigating genocide in Gaza has been released.

Here is what special rapporteur Francesca Albanese found:

- Israel committed "at least three" of the five acts listed in the Genocide Convention in Gaza

- Genocidal attacks were "approved and given effect" following statements that showed "genocidal intent" by Israeli military and government officials

- Israel treated the civilians of Gaza and its infrastructure as "terrorist" or "terrorist-supporting"

- By doing so, Israel transformed "everything and everyone into either a target or collateral damage, hence killable or destroyable" 


Yesterday, the United Nations Security Council met and passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire.



All it took for the United Nations Security Council to pass a cease-fire measure regarding the assault on Gaza was for the United States to abstain in voting.  Three times prior the US government voted "no" on a resolution.   The United Nations notes, "The UN Security Council on Monday passed a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan, the immediate and unconditional release of hostages and "the urgent need to expand the flow" of aid into Gaza. There were 14 votes in favour with the United States abstaining."  Jaclyn Diaz and Michele Kelemen (NPR) state, "The cease-fire resolution calls for the immediate, unconditional release of all hostages taken captive by Hamas during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people. Israel's military offensive in Gaza in response to the attack has killed more than 32,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health."  Joey Garrison and  Francesca Chambers (USA TODAY) add:

António Guterres, secretary-general of the U.N, applauded the action on the "long-awaited resolution on Gaza," which also emphasizes "the urgent need to expand the flow" into Gaza.

"This resolution must be implemented. Failure would be unforgivable," Guterres said in a statement.


At this United Nations webpage, you'll find the opinions of various government officials, we'll note France:

French Ambassador and Permanent Representative Nicholas de Rivière  welcomed the adoption of the resolution, stressing that “it was high time” that the Security Council act. 

“The adoption of this resolution demonstrates that the Security Council can still act when all of its members make the necessary effort to discharge their mandate,” he said.

“The Security Council’s silence on Gaza was becoming deafening, it is high time now for the Council to finally contribute to finding a solution to this crisis,” he continued, noting that it is not yet over and that the 15-member body will have to remain mobilised and immediately get to work.

“It will have to, following Ramadan, which finishes in two weeks, [the Council] will have to establish a permanent ceasefire,” the ambassador added, stressing also the importance of the two-State solution.


The government of Israel is not happy with the vote.  Christy Cooney (BBC NEWS) explains:

Israel has cancelled a meeting in Washington after the US declined to veto a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The resolution, which also called for the release of all hostages, followed several failed attempts at similar measures since the 7 October attacks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the US of having "abandoned" its previous policy.


ALJAZEERA examines what the resolution says and what it means:

While promising at least a pause in the war, the resolution has been criticised by some analysts for being more symbolic than substantial in its ability to bring an end to the war. Nancy Okail, the president of the US-based think tank Center for International Policy, told Al Jazeera’s Ali Harb that while the resolution is significant, it is “still very late and still not enough”.

Is the resolution binding?

All UNSC resolutions are considered binding, in accordance with Article 25 of the UN Charter which was ratified by the US.

However, the US has described the Monday resolution as non-binding. US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Washington fully supported “some of the critical objectives in this non-binding resolution”. On the same day, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters: “It is a non-binding resolution”.

This has been contested by other UN officials and Security Council members. China’s UN ambassador Zhang Jun said that Security Council resolutions are binding.

Deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq added that UNSC resolutions are international law, “so to that extent they are as binding as international law is”.

The Anadolu Agency reported that Pedro Comissario, Mozambique’s UN ambassador, said “all United Nations Security Council resolutions are binding and mandatory”.

If a UNSC resolution is not followed, the council can vote on a follow-up resolution addressing the breach and take punitive action in the form of sanctions or even the authorisation of an international force.





The most important flaw in the Council’s text is that it calls for a ceasefire only “for the month of Ramadan.” This most important of Muslim holidays began on March 11, so the demand for a ceasefire is only for about two weeks. And while it does demand that the immediate halt lead to a lasting ceasefire, two weeks is still a much too-short time.

Other problems reflect deliberate obfuscation of language. The demand that all parties treat “all persons they detain” in compliance with international law clearly refers to the thousands of Palestinian detainees Israel is holding, many in administration detention without even the pretense of legitimate legal procedures, whom international law requires to be immediately released. Their detention violates a host of those laws, but by not naming them directly, diplomatic wrangling always threatens to deny them their rights.

And in the paragraph focusing on the catastrophic humanitarian situation across Gaza, the Council’s demand for “lifting all barriers to provision of humanitarian aid at scale” should be a clear and straightforward message to Israel that it must open the gates, end its rejection of goods on the spurious grounds of potential “dual use,” replace its deliberately complex and time-consuming inspection processes and more. But that reference to “lifting all barriers” is hidden in a long sentence within a reference to an earlier resolution. The first part of the sentence merely “emphasizes” the need for more humanitarian aid and protection for Palestinian civilians. And in UN diplo-speak, especially in the Security Council that actually has the right to enforce its resolutions, “emphasizing” something ain’t even close to “demanding” that it happen.

Israel was still not pleased, of course. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately announced his delegation, expected in Washington tomorrow to discuss Tel Aviv’s planned escalation against Rafah, will stay home instead.

But even if the resolution is not all it should be, its passage (14 in favor, the U.S. abstained) still represents a powerful global rejection of the U.S.-backed Israeli assault against Palestinians in Gaza, and an important expression of support for the South African-led intervention at the International Court of Justice designed to prevent or stop Israeli genocide and to hold Israel accountable for its crimes. Importantly, and despite U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield’s false claim following the vote, all decisions of the Council, as stated in Article 25 of the UN Charter, are binding on Member States.

That puts a big obligation on the U.S. and global movements for ceasefire, massive escalation of humanitarian aid, and resumption of funding UNRWA. Left to its own devices, the Council will almost never move to enforce its own decisions. That responsibility, that obligation, lies with our movements—and, in the UN context, with the General Assembly. The legacy of the South Africa anti-apartheid movement, especially through the 1970s and 80s, and into the early 1990s, shows that model. The U.S. and Britain over and over again vetoed resolutions in the Security Council for sanctions against apartheid South Africa. Over and over again the General Assembly passed the resolutions—for banking, trade, and other sanctions, for arms embargoes and much more. Eventually, public pressure against Washington and London forced a pull-back, and eventually, reluctantly and grudgingly, those governments gave in, stopped vetoing the Council resolutions and started abiding by the calls of the Assembly. It all played a huge role in ending South African apartheid.


THE WASHINGTON POST's Rachel Pannett and Kelsey Ables analyze the resolution here.  ALJAZEERA's Hani Mahmoud observes this morning, "What we’re seeing on the ground right now is the Israeli military completely ignoring the UN Security Council’s resolution demanding a ceasefire."


The suffering and starvation in Gaza continue.  From yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!


AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn now to Gaza, where aid groups say famine is imminent after five months of U.S.-backed attacks by Israel. The head of the U.N. Palestinian aid agency, UNRWA, says Israel is now denying access to all UNRWA food convoys to northern Gaza, even though the region is on the brink of famine. UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X, quote, “This man-made starvation under our watch is a stain on our collective humanity.” On Saturday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres traveled to the Rafah border crossing.

SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES: A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other. That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage. … It’s time to truly flood Gaza with lifesaving aid. The choice is clear: either surge or starvation. Let’s choose the side of help, the side of hope and the right side of history.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Alex de Waal, the executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and author of Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine. His new piece for The Guardian, “We are about to witness in Gaza the most intense famine since the second world war.”

Alex, welcome back to Democracy Now! Describe what’s happening, at a time when Israel is now preventing the largest aid umbrella in Gaza, UNRWA, from delivering aid to northern Gaza, where famine is the most intense.

ALEX DE WAAL: Let’s make no mistake: We talk about imminent famine or being at the brink of famine. When a population is in this extreme cataclysmic food emergency, already children are dying in significant numbers of hunger and needless disease, the two interacting in a vicious spiral that is killing them, likely in thousands already. It’s very arbitrary to say we’re at the brink of famine. It is a particular measure of the utter extremity of threat to human survival. And we have never actually — since the metrics for measuring acute food crisis were developed some 20 years ago, we have never seen a situation either in which an entire population, the entire population of Gaza, is in food crisis, food emergency or famine, or such simple large numbers of people descending into starvation simply hasn’t happened before in our lifetimes.

AMY GOODMAN: How can it be prevented?

ALEX DE WAAL: Well, it’s been very clear. Back in December, the Famine Review Committee of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system — and that is the sort of the ultimate arbiter, the high court, if you like, of humanitarian assessments — made it absolutely clear — and I can quote — “The cessation of hostilities in conjunction with the sustained restoration of humanitarian access to the entire Gaza Strip remain the essential prerequisites for preventing famine.” It said that in December. It reiterated it again last week. There is no way that this disaster can be prevented without a ceasefire and without a full spectrum of humanitarian relief and restoring essential services.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain what the IPC is? And also talk about the effects of famine for the rest of the lives of those who survive, of children.

ALEX DE WAAL: So, the IPC, which is short for the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system, is the system that the international humanitarian agencies adopted some 20 years ago to try and come to a standardized metric. And it uses a fivefold classification of food insecurity. And it comes out in very clearly color-coded maps, which are very easy to understand. So, green is phase one, which is normal. Yellow is phase two, which is stressed. Orangey brown is phase three, that is crisis. Red is four, that is emergency. And in the very first prototype, actually, of the IPC, this was called famine, but they reclassified it as emergency. And dark blood red is catastrophe or famine. And this measures the intensity. There’s also the question of the magnitude, the sheer numbers involved, which in the case of Gaza means, essentially, the entire population of over 2 million.

Now, starvation is not just something that is experienced and from which people can recover. We have long-standing evidence — and the best evidence, actually, is from Holland, where the Dutch population suffered what they called the Hunger Winter back in 1944 at the end of World War II. And the Dutch have been able to track the lifelong effects of starvation of young children and children who were not yet born, in utero. And they find that those children, when they grow up, are shorter. They are stunted. And they have lower cognitive capacities than their elder or younger siblings. And this actually even goes on to the next generation, so that when little girls who are exposed to this grow and become mothers, their own children also suffer those effects, albeit at a lesser scale. So, this will be a calamity that will be felt for generations.

AMY GOODMAN: What are you calling for, Alex de Waal? I mean, in a moment we’re going to talk about what’s happening in Sudan. It’s horrifying to go from one famine to another. But the idea that we’re talking about a completely man-made situation here.

ALEX DE WAAL: Indeed. It is not only man-made, and therefore, it is men who will stop it. And sadly, of course, even if there is a ceasefire and humanitarian assistance, it will be too late to save the lives of hundreds, probably thousands, of children who are at the brink now and are living in these terrible, overcrowded situations without basic water, sanitation and services. A crisis like this cannot be stopped overnight. And it is a crisis that is not just a humanitarian crisis. It is fundamentally a political crisis, a crisis of an abrogation of essentially agreed international humanitarian law, and indeed international criminal law. There is overwhelming evidence that this is the war crime of starvation being perpetrated at scale.

AMY GOODMAN: Alex de Waal, we’re going to turn now from what’s happening in Gaza. We’ll link to your piece, “We are about to witness in Gaza the most intense famine since the second world war.”


Gaza remains under assault. Day 172 of  the assault in the wave that began in October.  Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.  But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets:  How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."   CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."   The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher.  United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." ALJAZEERA notes, "The number of people killed in Israel’s war on Gaza has increased to 32,414, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.  Israeli attacks in Gaza have also wounded at least 74,787 people since October 7."  Months ago,  AP  noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home."  February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:








And the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War." 


The Al Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza is "out of service" after the Israeli military forced medical staff to evacuate the facility, Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) warned on Tuesday.

“The occupation forces forced the hospital teams to evacuate and closed its entrances with earthen barriers,” the organization said in a statement on X.

At least 27 PRCS staff and six patients were evacuated from the hospital, with help from the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs. The bodies of two people who had been killed inside the hospital were included in the evacuation.

[. . .]

Remember: Hospitals are protected civilian objects under international humanitarian law. It is illegal, with few exceptions, to attack hospitals. A hospital can lose its special protected status only if it is used by an armed group for acts that are “harmful to the enemy.”

But, even if a hospital loses its special status, the wounded and sick inside are still protected by the principle of proportionality. A warning must be given, and time for safe evacuation, before carrying out an attack.


Remember, that is only one hospital being attacked in Gaza by the Israeli government currently.  

 

Regarding the Israeli governments attacks on hospitals, THE NATIONAL reports:


Palestinians held a funeral on Monday for a Red Crescent volunteer killed by Israeli forces at Al Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, the organisation has confirmed.

Ameer Abu Ayesha, 23, was killed on Sunday while working at the besieged hospital.

Colleagues were unable to bury him during the siege. His body was later removed from the hospital as Israeli forces ordered staff and displaced civilians inside to evacuate.

The organisation said Israeli tanks blocked the gates to the hospital and ordered people inside the complex to strip naked and leave the building.



Staff at Australia’s national broadcaster warned that its coverage of the war in Gaza relied too much on Israeli sources and used language that “favoured the Israeli narrative over objective reporting”, internal communications reveal, shedding new light on bias claims that convulsed the outlet.

In a summary of a meeting on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)’s coverage of the war, staff detailed concerns that coverage displayed pro-Israel bias, such as by accepting “Israeli facts and figures with no ifs or buts” while questioning Palestinian viewpoints and avoiding the word “Palestine” itself.

The three-page summary, which Al Jazeera obtained via a freedom of information request with the ABC, is undated, but its contents correspond with a meeting of 200 staff that was held in November to address concerns about the broadcaster’s coverage.

While the broad thrust of concerns aired at the meeting was reported by Australian media in November, the document contains extensive detail about staff’s complaints and previously unpublicised examples of alleged pro-Israeli bias.

“We’re worried the language we’re using in our coverage is askew, favoring the Israeli narrative over objective reporting. This is evident in our reluctance to use words such as ‘War crimes’, ‘Genocide”, ‘Ethnic cleansing’, ‘Apartheid’ and ‘Occupation’ to describe the various aspects of the Israeli practices in Gaza and the West Bank, even when the words are attributed to respectable organisations and sources,” staff said in the document, which is signed “Concerned ABC journalists and staff” and addressed to “managers and colleagues”.

“Meanwhile, we’re quick to use ‘terrorist’, ‘barbaric’, ‘savage’ and ‘massacre’ when describing the October 7th attacks. Similarly, we regularly quote sources referring to highly contested claims made by Israel, but not those made by Palestinians and their supporters.”






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