Things are not well in New Zealand

I was expecting my first post here to be a “Hello, here I am!” kind of thing—but I've been gazumped by current events and find myself starting with a blog post instead. (The guts of it starts about half-way through and concerns New Zealand's support for US aggression and anti-Russia propaganda. Feel free to scroll down to that if the first bit drags.)

So “Hello, here I am”, and here goes…

I'm in New Zealand, where we recently elected a new government led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. For a lot of us, including me, that was a huge relief; the new government—formed by Labour and NZ First, and supported by the Green Party—looked like being significantly left of the previous National led government. Their victory speeches even went as far as describing neoliberalism in a negative light, something I'd never expected to hear from a New Zealand government.

Since the October 2017 election the Greens have stuck to their promises, but Labour and NZ First have been somewhat disappointing. For example, the latter two campaigned strongly on rejecting the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), but are now working hard to push it through. Re-branded the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), it is the exact same six-thousand-odd page document that thousands of New Zealanders marched against. The difference is a three-page amendment suspending, not removing, 22 provisions pending reactivation by negotiation at some future point (for example, if the US re-joins, as it has hinted at several times). Our government claims that “side-letters” take care of ISDS concerns, but in fact those concerns are only dealt with if all eleven member countries sign side-letters agreeing not to sue. Just five or six member countries have actually opted-in to those side-letters.

Our new government acquiesced to the neo-McCarthyist witch-hunt for Russian spies following the Skripal poisoning. Although we didn't find any super duper secret agents hiding and plotting under our beds, Ardern said that “New Zealand had done the same as other partners, including making strong statements about Russia's failure to tender an explanation for the presence of its nerve agent in the UK and calling for a direct response.”

Never mind that the UK has still not managed to provide actual evidence linking Russia to the poisoning, or even managed to identify what the poison was despite Boris Johnson's enthusiastic certainty. If it was what they initially claimed it to be, the Skripals are surprisingly undead right now. But it turns out, according to British Labour MP Chris Williamson at least, that Johnson “just lied to justify our country's foreign policy.” [Update: Just after I wrote that, a little more news about the poison came out. Whether or not it clarifies anything is another matter.]

In New Zealand's mainstream news we hear no context, and nothing about Russia aside from uncritical reports about various politicians demanding immediate and harsh responses to various things without solid evidence or investigation, as if they're obviously in the right and that's the way healthy societies work. That is the way dangerously sick societies work. Mainstream journalists in New Zealand seem oblivious to that fact. There are no questions.

And here is the thing that prompted me to make this post: New Zealand's long-time and continuing support for illegal US and British intervention, meddling, and military action around the world, in places they have no legal or moral right to be. We support them both openly and covertly. New Zealand politicians frequently invoke the UN and international law when they want to come across as just and responsible human beings, but regularly ignore and belittle the UN when we and our “allies” decide international law need not apply to us.

Following the illegal US, British, and French attack on Syria today (April 14th NZ time), Jacinda Ardern was asked to comment. She expressed support for the US-led missile attack, and somehow (her explanation makes no sense to me—watch the clip yourself and see what you think) managed to blame Russia for the US attack on Syria. At any rate, Russia thinks an investigation ought to be carried out, and solid evidence found, before any military response can be justified, and guess what? It is their right to take that stance at the UN Security Council. Ardern describes such concerns as “unhelpful”, and from there jumps to blaming Russia for the 105 missiles the US, Britain, and France just opted to launch into Syria. *boggle*

If you're interested in the details, the UN has published a record of the Security Council meeting in which Russia used its veto power. An interesting point is that “Syria's representative, speaking at the close of the meeting, emphasized that his Government had officially invited OPCW to send its fact-finding mission to investigate. Syria would fully cooperate and provide access to a liberated Douma, he said.”

Regardless of anyone's personal feelings about Assad, and I'm not a fan myself, the following are facts:

● At this point there has been no investigation into the gassing that allegedly took place in Douma on April 7th. We don't even know with one-hundred percent certainty whether the incident was real or staged. There is reason for uncertainty and restraint.

● US Secretary of Defense James Mattis has admitted to a lack of evidence regarding previous gassing incidents, including the April 7th 2017 gassing in Idlib. Incidentally, that event also received an illegal unilateral military response from the US, which New Zealand's then National and Labour party leaders (Bill English and Andrew Little respectively) expressed personal support for on television. (I then wrote letters to both, asking whether the US airstrike was legal and requesting a 'yes or no' answer. I received replies reminding me that Assad is a bad man, but neither commented the legality of the US attack.)

● According to international law, the Russian and Iranian military presence in Syria is legal. They were invited to be there to counter terrorist groups.

● Also according to international law, the US and British presence and attacks in and on Syria are completely illegal. The UN has not agreed to their involvement. Ardern calling the UN legal process “unhelpful” is simply not relevant and should not be allowed to deflect the legality question.

● According to US law, Congress has to approve US military action in Syria and it has not. Either way though, without UN approval the US/British attack was a violation of international law.

So my point, basically...

New Zealand's government and Prime Minister are undeniably supporting and therefore complicit in the illegal US military action in Syria; there is no excuse or justification, it is simply unacceptable. And our mainstream media are supporting the general hysteria about Russia promoted by the US and Britain. New Zealanders ought to be horrified and loudly protesting about what's going on. Our government needs to know that we refuse to support US and British aggression and war crimes any longer.

Over the next few days I'll add links to any relevant developments below:

● 2018-04-12: A pre-airstrike article showing that Syria and Russia invited and encouraged an OPCW investigation into the Douma gassing. As it turned out, the OPCW Fact Finding team arrived the day of the US-led airstrike; resulting UN safety concerns mean the team can't currently access the site.

● 2018-04-15:  Russia's Sergey Lavrov gives a clear timeline of events. YouTube clip in Russian but with good English subtitles.

● 2018-04-15: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern pushes for UN veto power to be abolished. Personally, I haven't thought hard about the implications of that so haven't formed an opinion either way. Here's Wikipedia's article on UN Security Council Veto Power.

● 2018-04-17: NZ's main opposition party National is now attacking Jacinda Ardern, saying she's being too soft on Russia.

● 2018-04-18: Out of nowhere, our PM starts blaming Russia for undisclosed/nebulous cyber-attack incidents in NZ. With plenty of "maybe...", "may have...", "could be...", "attributed to..." - but not a single "we have direct proof that...".

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#NewZealand #Syria #Russia #Propaganda #Peace #JacindaArdern #SyriaStrike