Worlds Apart

Oksana Boyko (pictured right) in US vs UN? Ft. Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations her Worlds Apart interview of Sunday 24 June, generally discussed how the United Nations should handle conflicts between the United States and Russia its two most powerful members . The discussion included at least two issues which are of concern to this site, candobetter.net : 1. Border control in the United States and Europe, and 2. Syria.

Antonio Guterres attempted to put all the arguments by proponents of open borders and they were all effectively rebutted by Oksana Boyko. At one point in the discussion, after she stated that the United States as well as European countries, have the right to control their borders Oksana was accused of listening to Fox News, that is the station which features Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and other outspoken advocates for the effective control of the United States border with Mexico. The video, embedded below, is easily worth the 28 minutes of your time required to watch it.

Later in the program Oksana Boyko put to Antonio Guterres that the United Nations should oppose the United Sates' schemes to partition Syria and preserve Syria's territorial integrity. [1]

Footnote[s]

[1] The partitioning of Syria is also supported by the group Australians for Kurdistan. The group absurdly maintains that, with up to 20 U.S. military bases in Syria's Kurdistan (acccording to RT on 1 Mar 2018 and other sources) the YPG (an acronym for "People's Protection Units") is building a communist or anarchist society which is also a beacon of women's liberation. The convenor of "Australians for Kurdistan" is John Tully. In Hitler of the Middle East (6/2/18) | Tasmanian Times, ostensibly an attack on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Tully smears the popularly elected President of Syria, as "the Syrian dictator". Nowhere in his writings does Tully show any concern for the fate of Syria, including the 80,000 soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army, amongst the 400,000 citizens of Syria, who have been killed in the war against Syria since March 2011 in which which Erdogan has been complicit. That would come far closer to justifying Tully's emotive likening of Erdogan to Hitler than any of his actions against Kurdish secessionists in recent years.

The embedded video is from Occupational hazards? Daniel Ayalon, former deputy foreign minister of Israel, the 21 June Episode of RT's World's Apart In that program presenter Oksana Boyko (pictured left) interviews Daniel Ayalon (pictured right) about Israel's recent aerial bombardments of pro-Syrian-government forces inside Syria.

Oksana Boyko successfully challenged most, but not all, of Ayalon's lies and distortions.

Ayalon's supposed justification for Israel's violation of international law is that they were only attacking Iranians and Lebanese Hezbollah who were supposedly there, not to help defend Syria against tens of thousands of terrorist invaders, but to attack Israel.

Oksana Boyko, however, pointed out that Iran and Hezbollah only intervened in Syria after many years of war against Syria by terrorist proxies of the United States and its allies.

Given that, by one estimate, 400,000 Syrians including 80,000 soldiers have died in that conflict since March 2011, the actual and potential consequences of that conflict for Israel are trivial in comparison. It's unfortunate that Oksano Boyko did not provide those figures.

Ayalon pushed the Big Lie, long ago refuted, that the war in Syria was a sectarian conflict between Sunni Islam and Shiite Islam.

Ayalon also claimed that Israel is the only democracy in the region, ignoring the fact that all elections held in recent years in Syria, particularly the Presidential election of 7 June 2014 in which 88.7% the 73.42% of eligible Syrian voters who voted, voted for President Bashar al-Assad, were verified by International observers. In Syria, unlike in Israel, where Palestinians are excluded, all residents - Sunni, Shiite and Alawite Muslims, Christians, Jews, Kurds, Armenians and others, are entited to vote.

No viewer aware of the facts about Israel can be left in any doubt that the criminality of Ayalon and the country he represents has not diminished since Israeli warplanes sank the USS Liberty in 1967 killing 34 crew members in an attempt to provide the United states with a pretext to join Israel in its war against Egypt, Syria and Jordan.

Watch an old reporter turned politician do a few rounds in the ring with skilled Russian interviewer, Oksana Boyko of RT. Oksana gives him his head initially and he struts predictably, but things get interesting later, particularly on the issue of Australia's role and responsibility for the mess in the Middle East and Syria. (Bob Carr was a recent foreign affairs minister for Australia.) For me, it was fascinating listening to Carr's 'justifications'. Could a grown-up really believe this stuff? Who knows when Western leaders may really be called to account for their removal of order and warmongering in the Middle East. I wonder if this troubles them, if they lie awake at night going over their stories.

Original site of this video is http://rt.com/shows/worlds-apart-oksana-boyko/207171-g20-summit-international-relations/

(This article originally published 27 Sep 2013. See also: 'Iceland proved there is a way of dealing with financial crisis in isolated country' of 27 Apr (includes embedded broadcast) and Iceland President accuses England, Holland of financial bullying of 1 Feb 2010 on YouTube.) As Iceland’s banking system went into meltdown at the start of the global financial crisis, it came under enormous pressure from the rest of Europe to accept crippling austerity measures that would have burdened its people for generations to come. And yet the tiny island nation stood up to the European Goliath, defiantly opting for democracy even as it stood on the brink of bankruptcy. What can Iceland teach the world about the power of the people and the rule of law? To discuss these issues, Oksana Boyko, powerful Worlds Apart journalist, is joined by the President of Iceland, Olafur Grimsson. The video inside includes a hilariously black piece of humour in footage of Milton Friedman telling a much younger Olafur Grimsson that his values could only lead to tyranny. Olafur Grimsson argues in retrospect that Friedman led the tyranny of the market which is currently impoverishing the states that do not stand up to the international bankers.

Some candobetter readers may be familiar with Melanie Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine, which explored a theory of the impact of the Friedman ideology, in the development of 'disaster capitalism'.

This Milton Friedman ideology is, by the way, the one that the Australian major political parties, the ALP and the Liberal Party, still follow - with privatisation and the market supreme. As Oksan Boyko says, criticism of economic rationalism in elected political circles is a very unusual proposition for the West.

What is more important? Democracy or the interests of the financial markets?

Grimsson notes that it is difficult to find a country more peaceful and secure than Iceland, with a democratic history extending back 1000 years, but when the banks collapsed, the country was faced with riots. He points out that the breakdown of the financial system can threaten democracy: Banks and other economic organs carry an enormous democratic responsibility which has been denied in political economies that give the market primacy.

Should he just surrender to these threats of austerity or let the people decide? He decided to have a referendum - which went against other European states.

Olafur says,

There was a very simple truth at the bottom - what is more important? Democracy and the will of the people, or the interests of the financial markets?

The answer was obvious. What is Europe's most important contribution to the world? Not its economic system, but democracy.

Were other European leaders prepared to sacrifice this one thing that justifies governments. Apparently they were.

The tyranny of the financial status quo

Oksan Boyko talks about the "tyranny of the [economic] status quo", asking Grimsson whether he thinks the world has really learned the lessons of the [global financial] crisis and has addressed the underlying reasons?

Grimsson's answer is very interesting, to do with the experiences of Iceland in its resistance to the IMF's demands, which he says were revealed to be illegal. The high officials of the IMF acknowledged that maybe they had learned more from dealing with the Iceland crisis than they expected.

Grimsson also notes that the five Nordic countries in Europe have a combined population of about 20 million and form living experiments that prove that you can have good social welfare but a competitive economy. That you do not have to slash and burn the social fabric as is being done in so many parts of the world. Australia take note; the 5 top democratic economies in Europe have combined a population less than Australia's, but they are more successful and more democratic.

This video was available earlier tonight on RT News on Oksana Boyko's amazing international interview show, but became non-functional. Later it was placed by RT News on Youtube, at the link above, which is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qieVZb4Ml9I. The original link on RT was http://rt.com/shows/worlds-apart-oksana-boyko/iceland-banking-system-crisis-366/

Ice Sage

The interview covers a lot from a European perspective that values democracy in the light of still vivid memories of the terror of the second world war. Grimsson talks about the responsibility of politicians to listen to their people. He also says that ordinary people have a much clearer sense of what is important than so-called experts.

Grimsson also discusses the role of the UN and the need to engage Russia and China. Boyko sums up well that he is simply suggesting that all countries be treated as equal.