György Varga, NachDenkSeiten:

Russland hat den entsprechenden Punkt des Budapester Memorandums in seine erneuerte Nukleardoktrin aufgenommen. Das Datum der Unterzeichnung der russischen Doktrin durch Präsident Putin (19. November) fiel mit dem Tag zusammen, an dem amerikanische ATACMS-Raketen (300 Kilometer Reichweite) unter amerikanischer Führung auf Ziele in Russland abgefeuert wurden.

Volodymyr Ishchenko:

It is really difficult to argue that the war is still a kind of “people’s war” if the majority of Ukrainian men actually do not want to fight. The extent to which they are ready to articulate this position depends also on their fear of repression. It’s difficult to say this within the Ukrainian public sphere – that kind of criticism exists mostly in closed chats, “friends-only” Facebook accounts, and so on, and is only very cautiously articulated in publications.

Craig Murray:

The Lebanese government have recorded 51 breaches of the ceasefire by Israel in three days.

The United States and its allies have designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation – a FTO in US legal parlance. The USA – which is set up as the arbiter of the ceasefire – therefore views any military action by Israel against anyone or anything deemed “Hezbollah”, anywhere and anytime, as a legitimate counter-terrorism operation.

The USA therefore simply takes the view – and the UK will take the same view – that each and every attack by Israel is not a violation of the ceasefire, but legitimate counter-terrorism.

There is no doubt of this whatsoever.

Lebanon can do nothing to monitor or prevent the reinforcement of Israeli positions in Southern Lebanon (spoiler – Israel has no intention of ever withdrawing) because the ceasefire stipulates not only that the Israeli army has sixty days leisure to leave Southern Lebanon, but that in that sixty days the Lebanese armed forces cannot enter the areas Israel is occupying: including not taking control of their own Southern border and thus they cannot check what troops and weapons Israel is moving across unopposed.

Ω Ω Ω

The United States holds all of the cards. The Lebanese Armed Forces are the only army I can think of in modern history which “remained neutral” when their country was invaded. The Lebanese Armed Forces are literally in the pay of the United States.

This is a complex country. The truth is that the majority of the soldiers of the Lebanese Army would in fact defend their country against Israel given half the chance, while their leadership has other ideas entirely and has US-backed political ambitions.

The United States is a party to the conflict. The bombs falling on Lebanese heads are American bombs, dropping from American planes. The United States is put in charge of the “peace” by this Agreement. The current US Imperial hegemon is having its coat carried by the former colonial power France, in exchange for which honour France granted immunity to Netanyahu for war crimes.