NATO troops in Ukraine? One step closer to World War!
Newsweek, 3/20–French troops are ready for "the toughest engagements," the commander of the country's ground forces has said, as President Emmanuel Macron mulls an official military deployment to Ukraine despite repeated Russian threats of retaliation… Macron is at the forefront of a nascent proposal by a handful of NATO nations to discuss sending allied forces into Ukraine in training and advisory roles, though not as combat troops…France could engage a division of 20,000 troops within 30 days to operate as part of an allied coalition. Paris…would be able to command a force of around 60,000 soldiers made up of French and other allied troops. …Macron first suggested that NATO soldiers could deploy to Ukraine in February during a meeting of European leaders in Paris. The president said there was "no consensus" on the proposal, though added that "nothing was excluded."
Tik Tok ban is an example of inter-imperialist rivalry
Jewish Review of Books, 3/13–The House of Representatives just passed a bill...to ban TikTok in the United States unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, divests itself of the social media app… If the legislation musters sixty votes in the Democratic-led senate, then the social media app used by nearly half of Americans may disappear from their phones by the end of the year. Protecting Americans from TikTok’s political influence would be a gain to Israel’s standing with its most important ally…Researchers at Rutgers and the Network Contagion Research Institute compared TikTok and Instagram (which has a similar demographic) and found that although Instagram has only twice the number of politically themed posts generally, it had six times more pro-Israel and anti-Hamas posts than TikTok.
But the fact that TikTok is under the influence of America’s main adversary, the Chinese Communist Party, suggests the problem is more than just a wartime burst of digital anti-Zionism…a third of eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-old users regularly get news from the platform.
Even the U.N. chief is frustrated by the starvation of Palestinians
Al Jazeera, 3/23–The line of blocked aid trucks stuck on Egypt’s side of the border with the Gaza Strip while Palestinians face starvation on the other side is a “moral outrage”, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on a visit to the Rafah crossing. “I have come to Rafah to shine a spotlight on the pain of Palestinians in Gaza,” the UN chief said on Saturday, addressing a news conference in El Arish, in Egypt’s northern Sinai, where much of the international relief for Gaza is stockpiled as Israel continues to block aid from entering…A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other,” he said. “That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage. Any further onslaught will make things even worse – worse for Palestinian civilians, worse for hostages, and worse for all people in the region.”“You cannot see so many people being killed, you cannot see so much suffering without feeling hugely frustrated,” Guterres said while taking questions from reporters.
Trump or Biden, inter-imperialist world war awaits
Foreign Affairs, 3/22–Among Republicans, there are fewer and fewer Atlanticists left. Within the party, the idea that the United States should not be responsible for Europe’s security has become mainstream. The threats that emerge from Trump’s behavior will haunt Europe even if Trump does not win in November…Among the most consequential acts of Trump’s presidency was the lethal military assistance he provided to Ukraine…Aiding Ukraine with lethal weapons was something President Barack Obama had refused to do…In 2017, Trump greenlighted lethal military aid including Javelin antitank missiles to Ukraine, an act he believed would be good for the U.S. defense industry…In the first few weeks after Russia’s 2022 invasion, those Javelin antitank systems would play a crucial role in Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russia’s advance.
