Gangsters, genocide and gagging dissent

As Trump's world domination plans go into overdrive, managing editor Michelle Pini discusses the collapse of international law, the silencing of those who speak out and the powers that fueled an Antisemitism RC.

THE SO-CALLED rule-based order has finally collapsed.

While it can be argued that this happened some time ago, never before has the self-appointed defender of the free world openly admitted resorting to kidnapping and murder, solely for the purpose of stealing oil.

You may be thinking, but that’s what most recent conflicts have been about. Sure, but even George W Bush at least was dignified enough to pretend otherwise during the War on Terror, with a huge "weapons of mass destruction" backstory, which was bought by much of the Western world.

These days, the convicted felon in the White House, who has so far paid no discernible price for his crimes, shamelessly admitted that the abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores de Maduro, during which approximately 100 people were killed – in blatant violation of international law – is all about the oil. Venezuelan officials have said a large part of Maduro's security contingent was killed "in cold blood".

In any reasonable universe, such brazen bullying would be beyond anyone's wildest imaginings, but insanity notwithstanding, Trump said Venezuela will turn over 30 to 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S., which:

“…Will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States … [to] be sold at its market price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!’

Of course, Trump has also spun some story about the whole of Venezuela being a drug cartel or some such flagrant fantasy, but surely everyone except the Kool-Aid-addled MAGA supporters, who inexplicably got him re-elected, stopped listening to his inane ramblings around the time he incited the Capitol riots? We're not sure if anyone is tracking the lies since his re-election, but according to The Washington Post, Trump's false or misleading claims during his last term in office ran to 30,573.

As Chris Hedges recently explained on the Chris Hedges Report:

‘The kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife solidifies America’s role as a gangster state. Violence does not generate peace. It generates violence. The immolation of international and humanitarian law, as the U.S. and Israel have done in Gaza, and as took place in Caracas, generates a world without laws, a world of failed states, warlords, rogue imperial powers and perpetual violence and chaos.'

Hedges added:

‘If there is one lesson we should have learned in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Libya, it is that regime change spawns Frankensteinian monsters of our own creation. The Venezuelan military and security forces will no more accept the kidnapping of their President and U.S. domination — done as in Iraq to seize vast oil reserves — than the Iraqi security forces and military or the Taliban. This will not go well for anyone, including the U.S.’

Indeed, there is already sizable disaffection with the U.S. within South America, going back to Che Guevara and building over many years and numerous U.S. political interventions in that continent, so this latest and indefensible attack may well backfire on the Godfather state.

We cannot even expect the latest disgusting and violent oil-grab to be America's last act of aggression in a month. There hasn't even been time for the people who died in the U.S. attack on Venezuela to be properly identified and Trump is already talking up his next step in world domination — this time in Europe.

Trump has indicated that the U.S. will take Greenland one way or another, with the White House announcing on Tuesday:

'The President and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal and, of course, utilising the U.S. military is always an option at the commander-in-chief's disposal.'

It is important to point out, however, as Chris Hedges also reminded us in a recent interview with IA, that Trump is only the symptom and not the actual disease — the disease is the"corporate coup d'état in slow motion".

The disease is the amplification of the power of the wealthy elites, who control the money and therefore the narrative, who engineer an environment where a crazed despot can be propelled to the highest office on the planet. An environment where violence begets more violence and gangsters – for that is what they are – who worship only profits, rule by seemingly unstoppable force and pillage the world’s riches, answerable to no one.

Closer to home, those who support the gangsters continue to ignore the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza, any acts of terror waged by white people, such as the attack on a Christchurch mosque by a white Australian terrorist, and rampant injustices, such as those waged against Robodebt victims. But they cry tears of blood about one heinous terrorist act in Bondi, demanding royal commissions and possibly the return of the guillotine for all those who didn’t have a crystal ball to foresee the tragic event.

And now, Prime Minister Albanese has caved in and announced a Royal Commission into Antisemitism and Social Cohesion. It is important to say here that the murderous actions of the father and son terrorists on innocent victims in Bondi were simply monstrous. But it is difficult to understand how a royal commission can explain or prevent such events.

Indeed, it is difficult to understand how an enquiry focused specifically on antisemitism, but which ignores Islamophobia, for instance, can prevent future terrorist acts against Jewish or non-Jewish people, or do anything but provide further leverage to those political actors that have sought to exploit a tragic event in order to divide us.

And another journalist and activist, Murray Hunter (a long-standing IA contributor), meanwhile, is the latest Australian arrested and facing criminal defamation charges in Thailand for 'criticising Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Commission's role in internet censorship and alleged intimidation of Malaysian citizens'. Because in this new world order, speaking up about oppression catapults you to the status of public enemy number one (think Julian Assange), which can only be dealt with by ensuring you are swiftly gagged.

In Australia, gagging is not always achieved by gaoling people but can also be attempted in a multitude of other ways, such as dismissal (as in Antoinette Lattouf's case) or protracted legal battles (as in the case of Mary Kostakidis).

As a nation of only 27 million people, we may not realistically be able do much about a gangster state with a deranged madman at the helm, who has access to the nuclear codes and pirates the world’s riches, solely for the benefit of said gangsters.

We may not, on our own, be able to stop another gangster state, which enjoys the protection racket spoils of its alliance with the former gangster state, while it proceeds to wipe out an entire native population in Gaza.

We may not even be able to prevent the illegal arrest of our own citizens overseas.

But surely we can stop pretending all this is okay and at least call it out. We can certainly sever any obvious ties with the main gangster state, beginning with the AUKUS deal.

We could stop aiding and abetting the genocide by taking tainted money for the sale of armaments to Israel, or uranium to the United States, China, Japan, South Korea, Canada, France, the United Kingdom or anywhere at all.

And we could definitely make a lot of noise, at every opportunity, when one of our own, such as Murray Hunter, is arrested for the “crime” of calling out oppression. Let’s hope, unlike Julian Assange, Murray doesn’t have to wait a decade for his freedom.

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Follow managing editor Michelle Pini on Bluesky @michellepini.bsky.social and Independent Australia on Bluesky @independentaus.bsky.social, X/Twitter @independentaus and Facebook HERE.