Comments by "Catherine Birch" (@catherinebirch8263) on "Pod Save the World" channel.

  1. Even Australia supported a UN resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza. Purely because the US told it to, Australia had attacked Vietnam, Korea, and Iraq, countries that had never done anything to Australia and were never going to.. For that matter, countries that had never done anything to the USA and were never going to. Countries that were attacked purely to boost US power and/or wealth. Australia has agreed to attack China if the US tells it to. However even Australia has FINALLY drawn the line at refusing to support a UN resolution to end repeated and ongoing civilian massacres.
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  2. I really do object to this mealy-mouthed analysis of what's happening in Gaza. Ben Rhodes is fretting that civilian massacres might not be in Israel's best interests and calling for "an acknowledgement of differences with Bibi Netanyahu". I cannot find the words to express how insufficient and insulting in its inadequacy this is. "Right wing" is an appalling phrase when used to describe what is actually fascism. "Humanitarian situation" and "human catastrophe" are appalling phrases when used to describe what is actually ethnic cleansing and genocide.
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  3. The one positive point about Trump, and it's a big one, is that he says the quiet part out loud. Palestinians have been saying all along that the destruction of Gaza is about ethnic cleansing. Now the US government has finally said it out loud. It was excruciating watching the Biden administration pretend not to know.
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  4. Ceasefire. I wonder how long before Israel ... whoopsy-daisy. I blinked and missed it.
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  5. Here's what genuine cause for hope sounds like. "The Us announced today that it has stopped sending arming and funding Israel effective immediately. Resumption of aid will recommence 3 months after the latest day the Palestinian death toll exceeds the 10 year average by more than 10%."
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  6. Congratulations to the Pod for not censoring critical voices - that shows genuine integrity.
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  7. FINALLY you've stopped calling it the Israel-Hamas war. It's been clear almost since the get-go that this was a war on Gaza.
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  8. 1:04:10 "We did make mistakes. One of those mistakes was not understanding that when you are too casual, too permissive, about civilian death you end up creating more terrorists than you kill" This may be the single most chilling thing I have ever heard. What is just as chilling is that the two guys from the POD just sit there nodding. The senator just said that US went into Afghanistan not caring about how many innocent people it killed. Some of its leaders now regret this. But only because it backfired to some extent on the US. At the risk of sounding like a naive idealist - What happened to RIGHT AND WRONG? And the time to learn even that dreadfully cynical lesson was 10/11. You know, the day after some terrorists went after you because of the terrible harm and loss of life you'd already caused in the Middle-East; and all to obtain cheaper oil.
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  9. 1:00:20 [Tommy: Netanyahu suggested to the Biden government moving the Gazans out of Gaza "temporarily" and the Biden government actually raised it with the Egyptians to see whether they'd be willing to take the Gazans.] Enough said. [Ben: There's a difference between that and talking about Gaza being a great real-estate site when the Gazans have been pushed out.] Well ... yes. The difference is the language. Trump says the quiet part out loud. And yes, it was repulsive watching Trump negotiating a share of spoils of ethnic cleansing on public television. But really, who gets what in Gaza after it's been cleansed of Palestinians makes little practical difference to the Palestinians.
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  10. Sorry to hear the administration is frustrated. That really sucks. Of course, not as much as it sucks for the people of Gaza subjected to the ethic cleansing the same administration is funding, arming, and providing political and military cover for.
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  11.  @jmhorange  This a Youtube channel for politically influential people in the country that is responsible for the massacres. Funded them, armed them, provided political and military coverage for them, and continues to veto a UN resolution calling for them to end. And yes, I am asking Americans to face what they're doing.
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  12. Agreed, inasmuch as it might have been hugely better than it is now in any case. However - the Israeli's elected Netanyahu even after Rabin was assassinated and with widespread rumours that Netanyahu was either directly complicit in or at the very least indirectly incited the murder. (Shades of Trump.) Which doesn't really bode well for peace, inasmuch as that shows a pretty strong intrinsic lean to the Right in Israel. Doubly so when you take into account that Rabin himself was one of the original Zionist terrorists who burned Palestinians out of their homes to make way for Jewish settlers. So hardly a leftie peacenik himself.
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  13. First they came for the Palestinians. Then they came for the journalists. Then they came for the aid workers...
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  14. Three. Soldiers. At a time where the US is arming, financing, and supplying political and military supported for the massacre of ten thousand times more civilians in Gaza. Ten THOUSAND times more. Here are some relevant questions that Tommy and Ben apparently didn't even think to ask. Why does the US have military deployments in Jordan in the first place? Or anywhere else in the Middle-East for that matter. What role does that establishment play in general US dealt death and destruction in the Middle East? The whole thing about attacking Iran ... the US crushed Iran's secular democracy way back in the 1950's. For cheaper oil access. Leading to the installation of an oppressive Caliphate there; after the mullahs played a major role in kicking out brutal dictator the Americans installed in its place. At what point is the US going to be content with the amount of damage it continues to cause there?
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  15. A bit weak to demand a ceasefire when you're the one supplying the ordnance being fired. Smacks of insincerity really.
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  16. Could the Jews being forcibly displaced from their homes into camps and then exterminated during WWII ever have imagined that their descendants would one day be doing the same thing to others? And using their suffering as justification?
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  17. The UN just passed a resolution that Palestine is qualified to join the United Nations. The US ambassador voted against it. Shame, USA, Shame.
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  18. What I DON'T expect the ISD to do is to stop killing innocent Palestinians or to stop supporting the civilian Israeli terrorists who have been killing innocent Palestinians.
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  19.  @elysedewyngaert178  Oopsie. For a country that has no desire to kill civilians it seems to be going against its own wishes a heck of a lot.
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  20.  @jmhorange  Here's a civics lesson for you. In the US, people can indeed see how their Representatives vote. And yes, Congressional representatives are frequently both blackmailed and forced to vote a certain way. That blackmail of Congressional representatives is not illegal is a major reason for where the US finds itself today.
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  21. It's simpler than that. The Court is saying something Biden doesn't want it to.
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  22. The killing of cameraman Samer Abudaqa in Gaza is being referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Abudaqa was killed by an Israeli drone attack on Friday while reporting on an earlier bombing of a school used as a shelter for displaced people in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
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  23. 17:00 Trump says the quiet part out loud. No point in maintaining US forces in Syria because there's no Wealth there. But Ben points out, albeit indirectly, that its about Power. And Power and Wealth are the same thing - where there's one, the other follows. Trump gets that for sure, although the time frame might not be to his liking. If Trump has any appealing feature, it is his propensity to say the quiet part out loud. Any other US President would talk about it in terms of saving Syria. Canada has Wealth ... I'm sure it needs saving from something.
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  24. Americans talking about politics in South Korea makes me anstsy. There should not be a South Korea. Or a North Korea. It is so terribly sad. It also makes us realise what an absolute miracle it was that Vietnam managed to survive after America's brutal and pitiless attempt to establish a power base there.
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  25. It is however slightly bizarre to supply food to people when you are supplying money, arms, and military and political cover to Israel to kill those same people.
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  26. Zelensky is an embarrassment, allowing himself to be paraded about whenever and wherever the US calls on him. 24:15 I can't make any sense of what Ben is saying about Ukraine. In one breath he talks about the horror being visited on Ukraine, in the next breath he talks about Ukraine needing to keep the war going indefinitely. And calls it supporting Ukraine! I get it that Russia and the US are enemies, but that's extreme.
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  27. ALL countries understand this now.
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  28. ​ @user36112  Antisemitic used to mean anti-Jewish, which is something pretty awful. Then it meant anyone who wasn't a Zionist. Now it just means anyone who doesn't like what Israel continues to do to the Palestinians. It's trending towards becoming a badge of honour these days. I wonder what new word they'll come up with to mean anti-Jewish? I suggest "anti-Jewish".
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  29. So ... why not vote in the majority? Answer: because it isn't the same.
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  30. Biden on Christmas Eve - I had a long private conversation with Netanyahu. No I did not ask for a cease-fire.
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  31. 4:30 If Hamas is using hospitals as cover it indicates they have no respect for human life. Of course it’s NEVER OK to attack a working hospital under ANY circumstances. If there is an enemy presence, use another option to defeat it. [Congratulations PSW.] 6:00 Despite Joe Biden shifting his rhetoric gradually to include some tepid expressions of concern for Gazan’s , he is still seeking additional funding for Israel and those funds are unconditional wrt civilian security. He is also expressing far less empathy towards Gazan victims than Israeli victims. [Congratulations PSW.] Still no mention of the invisible elephant in the room, which is that Israel is a de-facto American colony established and maintained by US military, financial, and political support for its own benefit. It seems to be literally impossible for practically any moral, patriotic American to even process facts of that type - the nearest they approach it is to allude to “mistakes”. This easily explains the glaring difference in Biden’s empathy levels. Many Israelis are People, few Gazans are People. It also explains Biden’s unconditional funding of the IDF. Biden believes that it is to the benefit of US Power. NOTHING matters to him relative to that. Of course, he thought the invasion of Iraq was in America’s interest also. And, he may be right on both counts. After all, Lord of the Rings isn’t real life. Using Evil tools to achieve Power might not inevitably corrupt the Good.
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  32. And anyway money and power are kind of equivalent. The US must virtually own Ukraine now. It certainly seems to own Zelensky, given the places and occasions at which Biden trots him out. Basically, this war is about US consolidation of its world power. Wealth will follow, as it has from the US using its military power in the Middle East to get access to cheaper oil. At the cost of horrific damage to Middle Eastern peoples, but that's hardly an issue really, just as the lesser but still dreadful damage to the Ukrainians isn't an issue.
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  33. That's NEWS?? The reason why Netanyahou demanded the death of Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated soon afterwards, was because Rabin supported a two-state solution. That was nearly thirty years ago and since then Netanyahou has presided over extended Israeli settlement into the West Bank and the killing of many Palestinians there. It's not just hypocritical to pretend that suggesting a two-state solution to Netanyahou is going to have any other result than denial. It's a cyncially deployed smoke-screen. And give me a break. Netanyahou is NOT the problem. The Israelis who voted for him knew what they were getting - his call for the assassination of Rabin was extremely public.
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  34. When WAS that exactly? Back before the 1950s when the US crushed the new democratic government of Iran? Back in the early 20th century when the US sent troops into Russia to try to restore its royalty to power? The lesson from Vietnam was well learnt, but you are mistaken about what it was. The lesson was that the US population will not stand for its government instigating wars where the American death toll is high.
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  35. Whoever would have thought the blue six pointed star would become a fascist symbol? It seems that the lesson learned from WWII is Do unto others as still others have done unto you.
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  36. Surely the title would more fairly, and frankly more accurately, read "Israel Weighs Retaliation Against Iranian Retaliatory Attacks, Concerns For Violent Escalation Grows". Also, fewer weapons, less money, less potential for Israeli attacks and subsequent escalation. It's not as if the US couldn't stop enabling escalation. Should it choose to.
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  37. And THERE is the silver lining that leaves me torn between not wishing Trump on the USA, but not wishing the USA on the rest of the world. The sooner the USA stops "helping" the better off the world will be. "Helping itself" being closer to the money.
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  38. I disagree with most of what Bernie has to say, and some of it is just plain incorrect. The idea that Israel is accepting tens of billions of dollars from the US while still telling the US what Israel itself is going to do is not at all absurd IMHO. It’s much like my nephew who continued hitting his brother no matter how many times his parents kept telling him to stop. Why stop when there are no consequences? And in the case of Israel, the US hasn’t even TOLD it to stop. And in the case of my nephew, at least his parents didn't hand him a stick. Or a bomb. Bernie is also wrong that it is illegal for Israeli to block American humanitarian aid to Gaza while receiving financial aid from the US. Yes, that is contrary to a US law. However that law applies to the US, not to Israel. It is the US that is breaking its own law by continuing to GIVE the financial support. It is not against the law for Israel to continue RECEIVING it - US law has no standing in Israel. Frankly I find it quite worrying that a US senator believes that US law applies to the rest of the world. We don’t have One World Government … yet. (I do however agree with Bernie that blocking humanitarian aid is obscene.) I ALSO disagree with Bernie that the immediate concern in Gaza is to feed starving people. At least, not while they’re still being bombed. It’s entirely analogous to advice about what to do after being snake bit - first and foremost avoid further snakebite. Then treat it. Stop bombing the Gazans.
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  39. Maybe it prefers to pretend that Israel is acting unilaterally.
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  40. What on earth would make you think Biden doesn't realise what Israel is and what it's doing?
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  41. IMHO the opposite is the case. I cannot understand why so many intelligent Americans fall for the relentless propaganda that there is an important distinction between Netanyahu and the nation of Israel. Israel was established by ethnic cleansing by terrorists, one of whom, Yitzhak Rabin, later became a Prime Minister of Israel. However he supported a two-state solution and so was too much of a wimp for Netanyahu, who very loudly and publicly called for his assassination. Soon after Rabin was in fact assassinated, Netanyahu was elected Prime Minister. The Israelis knew exactly who they were getting. Of course not every single Israeli supports him, but that's hardly the point.
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  42. Canadians who are boycotting US holiday destinations might want to consider Cuba and Mexico as alternatives - by directing your money to another US target country you get a double whammy out of your southern holiday in the sun.
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  43. 35:00 A country whose commonly abbreviated name has three letters and starts with U, has been meddling in a civil war and selling arms to participants who are committing terrible acts. The country already has a lot of money and influence yet it still quite unreasonably wants more. This is such a common story. However the difference here is the final two initials of the country's name.
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  44. Interesting interview. Malala sounds very sensible. The thing is ... after listening, I'm not sure what the two women are calling on countries outside of Afghanistan to do. One thing Malala seems to be saying is that they don't want the persecution of women by the Taliban to be normalized by foreign countries negotiating with them without any Afghani women present. What they are clearly NOT asking for is that another country should use the persecution of women as an excuse to invade or occupy Afghanistan.
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  45. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Biden is getting forced, I tell you FORCED, into attacking Iran. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. If only Iran wasn't so evil and the US wasn't such a benevolent fighter for Truth, Justice and The American Way.
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  46. 8:27 So it's unsurprising that the US uses USAID to extend US soft power. Can't really complain about that. However it's a real eye-opener that it's a participant in America's proxy-war against Russia in Ukraine, Amerca's economic war against China, and is an integral part of America's direct intervention in who governs several small foreign countries. Even when you know what the USA is, it's a bit of a slap in the face hearing Connecticut senator Chris Murphy just rattle this stuff off.
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  47. Look! Over there! Iran. Meanwhile ... Gaza. And the West Bank. Biden is too old. It isn't just the apparent physical weakness. Or even the significant risk of dementia during the term of his presidency. It's that his understanding of both Israel and Russia remains firmly fixed in the almost jingoistic government pronouncements and media reporting of his youth. In the words of a recent New York Times article "As a young man, Biden watched Lyndon Johnson’s dream of being remembered for his “Great Society” collapse in the face of youthful opposition to an unpopular and cruel foreign war, with Johnson’s failures leading to the election of a corrupt president from the other party. I hope Biden takes action to avoid a repeat."
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  48. And here I was thinking that the US had selected Australia to be one of the locations for its next war. Which frankly never bodes well for any country. And as for fighting with (as opposed to against) US forces - I've heard some veteran stories about how they dreaded having to fight anywhere near US forces in WWII and Vietnam. Not to mention how the US knowingly sank Japanese ships loaded with allied (but not American) prisoners in WWII. Fortunately I hedged my forecast with "...unless the US decides to attack some other country before it attacks China."
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  49.  @technoloverish  Israel is an American colony in the same way that different parts of the US were an English colony, a French colony, and a Spanish colony. It's based on what country was the primary colonizer, not where they colonized.
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  50.  @bradhombre6912  Until it was colonized by the US in 1948 and took the name of Israel. Duh, not all the settlers came from the US! Many came from Europe, and some from elsewhere. However he US was the primary colonizer. The country that supplied most of the finances, the political support, had the primary influence on the system of government, etc. It just wasn't politically expedient to take the official title - that went to the Zionists. Hence what I said - "DE-FACTO colony".
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