Save Planet Earth. Stop Wars Now!
The Planets Today argues to STOP ALL WARS NOW whatever the cost. Allowing conflicts to continue could be the effective end of humanity as climate change is allowed to run out of control.
With the planet undergoing a mass extinction and with climate change going on unabated, now is the time to stop all major wars and divert the huge resources of military production into protecting the planet and its climate.
The planets today calls for extreme effort to be made in stopping the current ongoing senseless wars. The Russian war on Ukraine could perhaps be stopped by forcing Russia to negotiate by threatening European military action to push the Russians out. The war on Gaza could be halted by the US allowing a cease fire and stopping weapons deliveries. The UN could then do it's job to save lives and begin the negotiations for peace. The brutal civil war in Sudan is mostly ignored by the western media and governments since it has little impact on world commerce or oil supply. An international effort needs to be brought to bear to condemn and sanction the warring leaders and create an international embargo on supply of weapons.
After the two world wars nations got together to form the UN in an attempt to prevent future wars. The backbone of the UN was for nations to agree to uphold international law and treaties on human rights. Almost all major wars since have been due to nations with security council vetoes (or close allies with veto rights) deciding to ignore or bend international law for whatever reason. The simple truth is that the world would be a much safer place if all nations simply complied with the laws and treaties they signed, and attempted to sort out their conflicts within the UN rather than going to war.
Ukraine
The effects of this war on the world have been enormous affecting almost every person on the planet. Food shortages and energy prices have affected everyone with the poorest suffering the most.
One can understand in the first few months of this war that many nations were scared of an escalation and so western nations decided to supply weapons but do nothing else. It has been clear that the Russians and Western backed Ukrainians are equally matched resulting in a bloody stalemate that is going to continue until the US pulls the plug on aid and Russia takes the country.
In order to bring this conflict to an end either Ukraine needs to give up the stolen territory (probably resulting in loosing all territory as Russia is likely to attack again in the future) or the Russians need to be persuaded to leave. It would appear that the only way to achieve the latter is if European nations are willing to fight for European freedom and commit to using its air power (and possibly boots on the ground) to support Ukrainian forces. If it was made clear that a European "special military operation" was limited to attacking Russian units within Ukraine (and possibly plus a small margin into Russia) and if it was combined with serious peace negotiations before and during the European offensive, then surely the war could be brought to a close. Although Putin seems unlikely to retreat in any circumstance, Russian generals just might think that the fighting in Ukraine has been a costly waste of time and might be happy to go home.
The current western approach of pouring money into Ukraine and waiting for a miracle victory is getting nowhere with the only foreseeable result is that Russia "wins" the war through attrition. The world would then be plunged into a new continual cold (rather than hot we hope) war in which we are all the poorer.
Gaza
The war on Gaza, which is now also a war against the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and the biggest source of tension in the Middle East, currently shows that the worlds politicians do not care about people and even less about the planet. In summary this war shows how decades of miss-management of a man made crisis results in a situation where a wealthy, technologically superior force is allowed to bomb, starve and annihilate refugees living in tented squalor. The worlds media is now bored with this news story, with strikes that kill tens or hundreds of civilians becoming background news.
The historical context of this conflict is not often talked about. How many people know of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 that is seen by some as the start of the creation of the nation Israel and the start of the dispossession of the Palestinians? The reasons for why we are here are both fascinating and tragic in equal measure. It is a lesson in how deals are made behind closed doors by the superpowers of the time, all driven by the desperation of trying to get the upper hand during two world wars.
If we focus on the Palestinian situation from October 7th 2023, the war in Gaza can be summarised as the following:
Hamas committed a brutal assault on on Israeli citizens for a period of about half a day with over 1200 Israeli casualties. This, along with the crime of taking hostages and firing missiles into Israel, is a war crime and shows that Hamas were willing for Palestinians to suffer a huge Israeli retribution in order to get their call for autonomy and freedom from Israeli persecution back onto the world agenda. It seems their ruthless gamble didn't pay off in that although there is a lot of support, the current US dominated world order has prevented anything getting in Israel’s way.
Almost a year after the attack, no investigations have taken place to determine how Hamas were able to break out of Gaza and spend half a day rampaging through Israeli settlements with no apparent resistance from the IDF. This is especially puzzling given the sophistication of the Israeli intelligence agencies, the warnings apparently given to them by US and UK intelligence agencies, and the usual strength of Israeli military surveillance and activity on Gaza's borders.
Israel has now spent months assaulting Gaza and the West Bank. Against international law they have targeted water supplies, power, hospitals, food production, health workers, journalists and systematically destroyed housing when there was no military reason. They have forced the people of Gaza to move to new safe areas on a daily basis and have bombed, shot and arrested Palestinians as they moved to, and located themselves in the new areas. They have stated that the IDF is very careful to avoid civilian casualties, but on occasion make it clear that a 100 civilian deaths is acceptable if 1 terrorist commander is killed. Indeed the massive death toll of women and children is likely to be the biggest driver for creating Hamas supporters and fighters, ensuring Israel’s insecurity for decades to come.
It is clear that as the IDF make daily raids on the West Bank, destroying roads, electricity and other infrastructure, that the main aim is ethnic cleansing rather than security.
[Now that the war has moved to Lebanon, the actions of the IDF make it clear that ethnic cleansing is the priority for the Israelis. They are destroying infrastructure with the aim of creating a security corridor, probably 100km deep in which no Lebanese will be able to live. Israel is also attacking UN posts in that area simply to force the UN out and ensure there are no independent witnesses to the destruction of non military infrastructure. The Israelis rightly say that a UN resolution to demilitarise the area has been broken. However they fail to mention the 30 UN resolutions that Israel has chosen to ignore over the last 70 years.]
It is almost impossible not to conclude that Israel has been committing war crimes every day since the 7th October. It is also clear that the majority of the Israeli population support this war and believe that Palestinians are sub-human and deserve no rights what so ever. The nation that was in some part created in response to the Holocaust of 1930/1940's Germany is showing itself to be an almost identical racist society. It is an amazing example of how history repeats itself and how human beings can be so easily manipulated into hating their neighbours by politicians and a highly controlled media.
Lawyers always take years to decide if a conflict can be described as a genocide, and state that they need to gather evidence to do so. Israel states that it is not committing war crimes but has prevented any investigations or allowed any non-pro Israeli journalists into Gaza.
In cease fire negotiations with Hamas it has stated that although it is open to negotiation, it's current position is that there will be no permanent cease fire until Hamas no longer exists. In other words, for Israel this is a war of extermination - and indeed all the Hamas leaders have been killed.
This war is being fought by Israel and Hamas, but is really a war by the United States (and it's allies) on one of the poorest populations in the world. The US has spent decades protecting Israel and arming it so that it didn't need to make friends with it's neighbours, and didn't need to abide by international law or take note of the will of the United Nations. If half the money spent by the US on weapons for Israel had been, perhaps, spent on compensating the Palestinians for the loss of land etc., and forging alliances with impoverished nations such as Lebanon and Jordan, then we almost certainly wouldn't be in this mess and Hamas and Hezbollah wouldn't even exist.
This war could be stopped in a moment. If the US simply said "No more weapons until there is a cease fire" the war would end immediately. Unfortunately it is clear the US, and the industrial military complex is committed to this conflict. It ensures the middle east remains in tension and ensures that Israel will remain insecure for the foreseeable future. For the US, this is just another profitable (but not for US tax payers) and never ending conflict.
With no ceasefire likely whilst Netanyahu is in control of US foreign policy, it looks like Joe Biden's legacy is to be forever known as "Genocide Joe".
The end of the UN?
Israel has declared that it will ban UNWRA from operating in Israel, reasoning that some UNWRA personnel are related to Hamas members or sympathetic with it's cause. Basically Israel has declared that UNWRA is a terrorist organisation. So with Israel attacking UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, it would seem that Israel has all but declared war on the UN, with the full support of the US.
The UN has been completely ignored and sidelined by all as it calls for peace and humanitarian aid. International conventions written over the past 100 years to prevent war and protect citizens have been ignored, causing and allowing wars to continue. With the US and its friends, deeming the ICJ to be irrelevant on the small matter of genocide, it would appear that everything the UN has strived for is becoming defunct. With the US congress welcoming and applauding foreign leaders who have arrest warrants on them for genocide, it shows that most US politicians (on both sides) are pro-genocide and anti-UN.
The Planet?
With rulings by the UN being ignored, it probably means that we are entering a new age where all nations will consider UN treaties as no longer binding. Nations will go there own way and all the environmental treaties that are trying to protect the planet will in effect become worthless. Nations will follow their individual goals limited only by their military might or financial power. It would appear with so many nations eager for war and others scrabbling to exploit the last fossil fuel resources, the prospects for the planets health are bleaker than ever before.