RANT: FOR THE NOBELIST OF MEN?

  

IT WOULD BE NICE if there was a Nobel Prize for participation—for just showing up, an “Also Ran” or “Everybody’s A Winner!” trophy that Donald Trump could receive. I don’t think he'd be satisfied with a medallion like the Nobel Peace Prize (NPP). Make it more like an “Emmy” or an “Oscar”, or a “Noble” business trophy that President Trump can put on his desk in the Oval Office. Have it stand out, be a bit of an eye catcher. Maybe something like a Briars Cup. Something classy, anyway. Because the American president is hell-bent on getting an award. Does he deserve an NPP, though? Nuh-uh. If he’d jettisoned the Ukraine clusterfuk on Day One of his presidency by stopping the flow of weapons and taxpayer dollars into Zelensky’s money pit, then there might be a case made for his getting 2025’s Nobel Peace Prize.* ['Cept, see "Gaza" 634 words👇. Ed.] And while Trump seems to genuinely want to get out of the Ukraine mess, he has strong headwinds to push through. First of all, his advisors, staff, his cabinet and most politicians on the Hill, are hawkish on Russia due to residual hatred of the USSR from Cold War days, or else they’re die-hard “Russia-gaters” who’ve been psy-opted into believing Russia’s President Putin is the horned and goat-footed Satan of our nightmares.

The summit in Alaska the last week, while it was short on “deals” as Trump so often wants to make, nevertheless had several important upsides:

👉First, Russia and the United States, as represented by each country’s president, met face-to-face; at least they’re talking.

👉Trump seems to have come around to Putin’s view that a temporary ceasefire—what Zelensky and most European heads of state want—is a non-starter. Why should Russia, that is winning decisively, stop their advance and give Ukraine time to re-group and re-arm?  Such a deal only delays the inevitable Russian victory with more death and destruction, going forward. A “peace treaty”, on the other hand, is a comprehensive settlement to the conflict that hammers out a deal whereby Russia and Ukraine, as well as Europe, can have their security guaranteed. Something along the Austrian or Swiss model of non-aligned neutrality. It would require a good deal of diplomatic wrangling, but it is far better than establishing a “frozen conflict”, like the one in place between North and South Korea since 1953, which is an armistice, a truce, not a real peace. Unresolved issues there have caused conflict, fear, and mistrust between the two nations ever since. Without a peace treaty, Ukraine would remain an existential threat to Russia, especially if what remains of Ukraine rearms and bids for NATO membership where it could become a base for conventional and even nuclear-tipped missiles pointed at Moscow and points eastward. Which would be unacceptable for Russia.(Think of China placing a ballistic missile site in Windsor, Ontario and how the Americans would react. They'd level the place ASAP, right? Is Russia not allowed to feel the same way about Ukraine becoming a NATO member and thus a more dangerous neighbour? 

BTW, NATO has been nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize. Uggh! Gag me with a spoon! 😝 The alliance is a paper tiger well past its sell by date. It does more harm than good and promotes conflict where diplomacy is urgently needed. Please, NATO, go sit in the corner and dissolve!

 

 👉Trump may have come away with a better appreciation of why Russia sees Ukraine as a threat to its peace and security. Which would be helpful if he is going to wind down American support for the Zelensky regime. SINCE the summit, the American president has cut off direct sales and donations of weapons to Ukraine, saying he will sell armaments to the Europeans and if they want to donate or sell them to Ukraine, that’s up to them. He’s opening up a bit of daylight between the United States and Ukraine, and at the same time placating hardliners in his administration by allowing US armaments to still flow there, if by a more circuitous route.¹

 

👉Trump said his three-hour meeting with Putin in Anchorage involved a wide-ranging discussion and he made it clear that America and Russia have concerns between them other than Ukraine. More talks and negotiations are in order. Putin invited Trump to visit Moscow in the near future. I would like to see negotiations around limiting nuclear proliferation and revising nuclear treaties, such as New Start, and the INF treaty. We will have to see how this all shakes out over the coming weeks and months.

 

So, should President Trump get the Nobel Peace Prize if his efforts in making a “deal" between Russia and Ukraine bear fruit? No he should not. His unwavering support of Israel and its depredations in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian lands is unconscionable, clearly marking him as complicit in the Jewish state's genocidal crimes there. But, I’d be happy to see him receive the Nobel Peace Prize as long as he’s in prison in the Hague for war crimes. He can keep his gold-plated Nobel medallion in his cell or use it to buy extra snacks in the prison commissary. 😁

  

ALFRED NOBEL'S WILL stipulates that the Peace Prize award should go "to the person (or group) who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." Trump has a long row to hoe, I’m sure you'll agree.³  

 

 CHEERS JAKE. _______________________________

 

* One suggestion would be for Trump and Obama to time-share the NPP Obama won in 2009 for ending the “combat” mission in Iraq (mostly), though there are American troops there to this day. And the American military got out of Afghanistan only during Joe Biden’s presidency in that FUBAR of a withdrawal in 2021. So, while there was troop downsizing during Obama’s presidency, he didn’t end the “forever wars”, and he got America involved in Syria, to boot, in 2013. And let's not forget Libya! Finally, recall how Obama was given the moniker of “Drone Warrior-in-Chief” for his extensive use of the then-new remote-killing tech used to blow up Taliban chieftains and wedding parties. I personally feel Obama should give his medal back. He didn’t deserve one then and Donald Trump doesn’t deserve one now.

 

1. Trump has said the U.S. will allow the sale of longer-range missiles to Ukraine but they will need U.S.-monitored systems to fire and guide their flights to targets inside Russia, including Crimea. This is worrying and hopefully it means that Trump is doing what he always does, i.e., ‘playing both sides of the street’. The missiles may never arrive in Ukraine—apparently, they're still in production—or perhaps the launch codes will be withheld by the Americans. I hope this is just Trump dicking around like he always does, looking for some leverage with the Russians. It's a tentative WWIII scenario, but we'll have to wait and see. 

 

2. At the time of the Committee's creation, Norway and Sweden were in a loose confederation, which is why the award ceremonies are divided between Oslo and Stockholm. Nobel was a Swede.

 

3. And Trump winning by hook or by crook, would suggest to me a politicization of the Nobel Peace Prize process, and another example of how our institutions of governance, of law, finance, international relations, and humanitarian outreach, have been corrupted, co-opted by vested interests, and, in many cases, are no longer fit for purpose.

 

FUN FACTS: Each year the Nobel Committee selects six winners in the following categories: Physics, Chemistry, Medicine or Physiology, Literature,   Economic Sciences (since 1901), and Peace.

💣Nobel died in 1896 leaving his vast fortune (he invented "dynamite") to fund in perpetuity the Nobel Prize Committee and the nearly one-million dollar award each of the six laureate takes home. 

Five of the awards are presented through Swedish institutions. The sixth, the Nobel Peace Prize, is awarded in Oslo Norway.²  For the first five awards, the  Committee gathers information and consults experts, beginning in September of the previous year, to decide who will be the laureates the following year.

 

THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE process is different from the other Nobels: Between October and January the Committee opens up its nominations and announcement cycle so authorized institutions and individuals can put forward their candidate for consideration. Instead of the Committee compiling a list of nominees itself, the NPP is thrown open to members of legislative bodies, international courts, university professors, etc., for nomination of possible candidates. In February the  Committee compiles a short list of roughly twenty or so candidates and over the course of several months one candidate is chosen for the prestigious award. Note: Institutions and organizations can also be nominated, for example the International Criminal Court and the government of South Africa are two 2025 nominees. Trump is nominated a couple of times for peace deals he more or less arranged, one notably between Israel and Hamas at the start of his second term. (It was a temporary ceasefire.) He was nominated for the award by the arch war criminal, Benjamin Netanyahu, and in a cringe-worthy exchange at the White House in early July, the Israeli PM gave Trump a copy of the letter he sent to the Nobel Committee nominating the American president. [After watching that, I needed to wash out my eyes. Ed.] 

OTHER nominees include everyone's favourite genocidal grandmother, Daniella Weiss, a rabid and racist Israeli settler who's just salivating on getting to remake Gaza into a Zionist paradise. My choice for this year's Nobel Peace Prize would be Francesca Albanese,  "for her work as the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and her tremendous and courageous work to highlight the destruction of Gaza by Israel." You go girl!👍

 

INTERESTING INFO: The "short list" of about thirty candidates, supposedly representing those names compiled by the Nobel Committee from 224 individuals and 94 organizations nominated for the 2025 NPP, is speculation. The Committee does not give out information on the nominees or the short list, nor does it divulge its selection process. Those names found in Wikipedia and elsewhere have been publicized by the nominators for one reason or another, and in some cases demanded by nominees. Currently, the Committee is debating on the short list and there is no telling who is on or off the list, and who remains in contention. BTW, the winner of the NPP is often controversial, one reason why no details of the Committee's vetting process may be revealed for fifty years when all the Committee members are dead and buried in their graves! 

The Committee will make an announcement in October and the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony will take place in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death. It's interesting that during his lifetime, Nobel was known as "the merchant of death" for his work developing explosive munitions used widely in militaries throughout the world to this day. 

But, who knows? Maybe a leopard can change its spots?

 

 

    "EVERYONE'S A WINNER!"

 

 

      

NoW UPDATES: GAZA: YES, VIRGINIA, IT REALLY IS A GENOCIDE: STAGE THREE

 

IN A HEARTFELT INTERVIEW (at the 1:02 mark of the YouTube podcast) on Monday with Grayzone editor Max Blumenthal, Lt. Col. Anthony Aguilar (Ret.) discusses why he became a whistleblower and reveals how the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is complicit in war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Aguilar, a 25-year combat veteran and Green Beret with the American military, who had worked for GHF since late May, said Gaza was like nothing he’d ever seen in all his deployments to war zones in Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordon and elsewhere. He said that the former ISIS stronghold of Mosul in northern Iraq, a city that had been mostly destroyed by Russian and American bombardments, even it still had remnants of a functioning civic and social “life” available to its remaining population.  

Not so in Gaza, Aguilar points out, where the links and nodes making for a viable society, from farmland and orchards to apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, pubic buildings, mosques, churches, businesses, power stations, roads, water and sewage facilities, even graveyards*, have been systematically turned to rubble by the IDF (Israeli Defence Force), forcing most of the 2.1-million Palestinian inhabitants to live in tents or out in the open, with only four GHF distribution sites currently operating to provide them with food where, in the past, there had been four-hundred aid centers run by UNRWA.¹

The deaths from starvation we have witnessed these past months have increased with grim frequency in recent weeks and are now daily occurrences. And the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is woefully inadequate in addressing the humanitarian crisis. But then, it was never meant to provide Gazans with food aid and humanitarian supplies commensurate with their needs. Its inability to even remotely supply Palestinians with their basic needs is not a failure of the system. Rather, it is a feature.

 

Aguilar soon realized he was witnessing the weaponizing of aid in the guise of so-called ‘humanitarian’ assistance, the protocols of which Google’s AI helpfully summarizes as: “…a set of principles and guidelines that govern the delivery of aid during crises, ensuring it is delivered effectively, impartially, and with respect for human dignity.” [It seems even a set of algorithms has more empathy and respect for human life than GHF and its site-boss subsidiaries UG Solutions and Safe Reach Solutions!²  Just sayin’. Ed]

 

👉I REFER the reader to a study I posted earlier by Israeli academic Yaakov Garb, here, that analyzes the physical layout of the GHF aid sites and concludes they were designed for military purposes and crowd control, not for humanitarian aid services. For example, Aguilar noted that all the sites have CCTV cameras stationed around the perimeter to monitor the crowds with one camera per site dedicated to collecting facial recognition data on Palestinians accessing the aid centres. Early on, he was puzzled by how narrow the entrance was to the food distribution  arena, funneling Gazans, as it did, into a narrow band that allowed through only one person at a time. He thought it was inefficient and stressful to the hungry crowds waiting in line. Then he noticed how the camera recording facial recognition scans was pointed at the receiving entrance where people's faces were momentarily framed, making for clearer identification of each  and every Palestinian as they entered. Thus, the physical layout of the aid centers, recalling the Garb study, is neither effective, impartial (how many will be screened and deemed ineligible for aid in such a system?), nor is it respectful for “human dignity”. Not by a long shot! The aid sites are designed to serve the needs of the Israeli military. 

 

IN ADDITION, Aguilar was puzzled by the size of one GHF aid centre near Rafah. The footprint of the place was so large that all the GHF sites could be put inside its borders with room to spare. He discussed this with co-workers and concluded it was to be the location of the first “concentration camp” that would eventually hold several hundred-thousand Palestinians who must enter the camp to get food, but are not allowed to leave (unless they leave Palestine altogether). The rest must either live out their lives behind barbed wire, monitored 24/7 with hi-tech screening and guarded by thousands of IDF troops and mercenaries civilian contractors, or else they must die. 

👉Aguilar calls the evolving Rafah camp system as "Stage Three". The first stage was the destruction of Gaza's infrastructure. (Only Gaza City remains mostly intact with Israel recently calling up 60,000 reservists to lay seige to it.) The second stage was the displacement of the population to the southern tip of the enclave. The third, imprisoning the entire population in concentration camps in what was the city of Rafah along the Egyptian border. The fourth stage, the "Final Solution", would be expelling or otherwise eliminating all Gazan Palestinians from Palestine.

 

ONE OF THE MOST COMPELLING  and disturbing observations Aguilar made during his time as a UGS contractor was during a rotation when he was stationed in the control room monitoring the live feed from the site's CCTV cameras. The cameras showed the line of Palestinians as they entered the ‘funnel’, packed tightly together in the narrowing entryway to the central food distribution arena. One Palestinian father lifted his two young sons up to sit atop the berm that formed one wall of the funnel so his children wouldn’t be crushed by the crowd. Inside the control room, the Israeli liaison officer told Aguilar to tell his UGS guards to remove the children from atop the berm. Aguilar said they were handling the situation and to let his guards do their work. The liaison officer then phoned his IDF counterparts, speaking in Hebrew, so Aguilar didn’t understand what he was saying. A UGS staff member who spoke Hebrew told Aguilar the officer called for military snipers to target the two boys. Fortunately, in the meantime, they climbed back down to join their father, but Aguilar was shocked that the Israeli officer would call on snipers to shoot children. This made a great impression on him, causing him to reflect on what kind of outfit he was involved with and whether he should leave. Shortly afterward Aguilar had a conversation with his supervisor who said he should not go against the wishes of "the client". When Aguilar asked him what he meant, his supervisor said the IDF was the client and UGS took their marching orders from them! A 'charitable' organization running its operation at the behest of an occupying army....hmmmm? A conflict of interest, one would think. Humanitarian aid? Nuh-uh.

 

👉Finally, I think for Anthony Aguilar the straw that broke the camel’s back and made him decide to become a whistleblower, exposing the the policies and practices of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, its sub-contractors, and IDF soldiers guarding the sites' perimeters, came when  a 10-year-old Palestine boy named Amir, who'd walked 10km barefoot to get a few scraps of food, came forward and kissed his hand, thanking him for the tiny amount of aid he’d gotten. Tragically, Amir was killed a short time later when IDF soldiers fired into the crowd near the distribution site that, presumably, failed to disperse quickly enough. [Naughty! Bad crowd! Bad! Ed.]

 

IF ONLY our political leaders had such moral courage to stand up like Anthony Aguilar and say: “I will abide this no longer!” And then shun (in the fullest sense of the word) this half-mad, pariah  state called Israel.

 

FUN FACT: Switzerland has ordered the dissolution of the Swiss branch of GHF because the foundation did not fulfill its duties and obligations under Swiss laws of incorporation. And here the word “sketchy” should come to mind! The short-lived ‘charitable’ organization’s duties were taken up by its Delaware, USA incorporated partner of the same name and tasked with raising funds to staff and run the day-to-day operations. The on-the-ground work would ultimately be done by two private contractor companies  UG Solutions (Aguilar's former employer) and Safe Reach Solutions.

 

Aguilar was hired by UGS to be part of the security team at the four food distribution sites in southern Gaza. Point being, that UGS is there to make money and has no experience in running humanitarian aid distribution centers, and the same goes for the foundation side of things, that Aguilar suggests is little more than a shell company.

BTW: Just who funds GHF is apparently a secret. Wanna bet a good chunk of change comes from the Israeli government, Zionist billionaires, the CIA, leftover USAID slush funds and perhaps an EU state or two that wants to continue supporting Israel, but on the down-low (wink-wink), so as not to rile their populations that are increasingly critical of the "Jewish state". 😉

 

FUN FACT: Nearly 2,000 Palestinians seeking food aid have been murdered by IDF soldiers at or near GHF food distribution sites and over 13,500 have been wounded. One commentator suggests the much larger “wounded” figure indicates a deliberate policy on the part of the Israeli military to stress Gazan health services by causing mass casualty events. Nice touch. 👌

 

FUN FACT: 266 people so far have died of starvation since the Gaza genocide began on 7/10/23, including 122 children.

 

FUN FACT: Since October 2023, over 230 Palestinian journalists have been killed in Israeli bombardments and targeted assassinations, including six Al Jazeera journalists killed last week. And over 1,500 medical services personnel have been killed during the same period. [Fun new word: "Medicide"]

 

CHEERS, JAKE. ____________________________________

 

* ANUDDER FUN NEW WORD: "Necroviolence”—“Violence performed and produced through the specific treatment of corpses that is perceived to be offensive, sacrilegious, or inhumane by the perpetrator, the victim (and her or his cultural group), or both.” - Jason De Leon in The Land of Open Graves, p.69 [2]

 

1. There are other charitable organizations operating in Gaza, but not nearly at the scale they were at prior to October 7/23. They are hampered by desperate Palestinians looting vans and trucks, criminal gangs, the same, and by the destroyed transportation infrastructure making access to Palestinians in need difficult. But the plan is for GHF to scale up to feeding the entire Gazan population. HOWEVER, the real ‘plan’ is to lure Palestinians into southern Gaza using food aid as bait, to corral them in one area until such a time as they emigrate, ‘voluntarily’ or otherwise, or else die in the giant concentration camps the Israeli government is building on the ruins of Rafah City. Not to put too fine a point on it but using food as a weapon and deliberately starving a civilian population are war crimes. They are against the Geneva Conventions and just about any international law you’d care to mention and, as a crime against humanity, those who perpetrate such heinous acts should be given the same sentences dished out at the Nuremberg trials following the end of WWII.

 

2. UG Solutions (UGS) is a private military contractor that provides guns for hire armed personnel to various hot spots around the world. It, along with Safe Reach Solutions (SRS), provide security at the various distribution sites in Gaza. And they are set to expand operations when Israel finishes building its hellscape concentration camp system in Rafah, something former American diplomat Chas Freeman scathingly calls: "Auschwitz on the Mediterranean." 

 

[1 phoney "shell" foundation + 2 guns-for-hire sub-contractors = 0 humanitarian aid. It's just math! You can't argue with the math, damn it! 😖]