harlekin.me

The World Health Orga­niz­a­ti­on slam­med the unpre­ce­den­ted num­bers of attacks on glo­bal health care sys­tems Wednesday. 

“This issue is more important than bricks and mor­tar. This isn’t just about the dest­ruc­tion of buil­dings,” Dr. Mike Ryan, exe­cu­ti­ve direc­tor of WHO’s health emer­gen­ci­es pro­gram, said while dis­cus­sing Ukraine.

“This is about the dest­ruc­tion of hope. This is about taking away the very thing that gives peop­le the rea­son to live. The fact that their fami­lies can be taken care of, that they can be cured if they’re sick, that they can be trea­ted if they’re inju­red. This is the most basic of human rights, and it has been direct­ly denied to peop­le and we are then in a posi­ti­on whe­re we can’t send assi­s­tance to tho­se peop­le, becau­se the very act of attacking tho­se faci­li­ties or not taking care to avoid tho­se faci­li­ties means we can’t send the appro­pria­te help when it’s nee­ded,” he said. 

Ryan said that attacks on health care, encom­pas­sing workers and faci­li­ties, means health sys­tems are “beco­m­ing a target.”

“We’re only a very short part into this year, we have never seen, glo­bal­ly, never seen this rate of attacks on health care,” Ryan said. “Health is beco­m­ing a tar­get in the­se situa­tions; it’s beco­m­ing part of the stra­te­gy and tac­tics of war. It is ent­i­re­ly, ent­i­re­ly unac­cep­ta­ble. It is against inter­na­tio­nal huma­ni­ta­ri­an law.”

Of the 89 attacks on health sys­tems around the world this year so far, 43 have been in Ukrai­ne, accord­ing to WHO Director-General Tedros Adha­nom Ghebreyesus.

src: click

Less than a week ago the WHO had con­fir­med 18 attacks. src: click

edit: Thats 43 attacks with 12 peop­le being kil­led in total.

DW’s Washing­ton bureau chief Ines Pohl, star­ting at 5 minu­tes in.

Ent­ry point:

“This was about hearts and minds, if I can put it that way, he hit lots of emo­tio­nal points, that par­ti­cu­lar­ly hit home to ame­ri­cans, he tailo­red that speech to his audience.”

“Abso­lute­ly, ah, ah Phil. He real­ly under­stands, how to reach a spe­ci­fic audi­ence, I mean - we mus­tn’t for­get, he is a trai­ned come­di­an [?], and he real­ly knows how -, kind of, you know, which but­tons to push to reach, as you say - the hearts and minds of the audi­ence, and he did so - I mean, just by invo­king all the tra­ge­dies in the ame­ri­can histo­ry, like the attack on Perl Har­bor, or the 9/11 ter­ro­rist attack, with the­se - images - he invo­ked in the speech, he did­n’t only reach out to the law­ma­kers and poli­ti­ci­ans, but also to every sin­gle ame­ri­can, and on top of that, he play­ed this - very emo­tio­nal, ah, video, so he also under­stands, how to use images. So in a way that was a very, very - modern [?] speech, we just heard from pre­si­dent Selenskyj.”

Advan­ced course -

Meta Plat­forms (FB.O) will allow Face­book and Insta­gram users in some coun­tries to call for vio­lence against Rus­si­ans and Rus­si­an sol­di­ers in the con­text of the Ukrai­ne inva­si­on, accord­ing to inter­nal emails seen by Reu­ters on Thurs­day, in a tem­pora­ry chan­ge to its hate speech policy.

Repor­ting by Mun­sif Ven­gat­til in New Delhi and Eliza­beth Cul­li­ford in New York; edi­t­ing by Jona­than Oatis, Ste­phen Coa­tes, Shri Nava­rat­nam and Kim Coghill

src: click

Now retrac­ted:

Meta Plat­forms, the parent com­pa­ny of social media giants Face­book and Insta­gram, now says users can­not share posts cal­ling for the death of Rus­si­an pre­si­dent Vla­di­mir Putin or other heads of sta­te after all.

The move came as Russia’s ban on Insta­gram came into effect on Mon­day, blo­cking access to the social media plat­form for some 80 mil­li­on users across the country.

Meta’s latest poli­cy, detail­ed in an inter­nal com­pa­ny post seen by Reu­ters, marks a U-turn from a pre­vious decisi­on that was said to tem­pora­ri­ly allow some posts on Face­book and Insta­gram cal­ling for the death of Putin or his Bela­ru­si­an coun­ter­part Alex­an­der Lukashenko.

“We are now nar­ro­wing the focus to make it expli­ci­tly clear in the gui­d­ance that it is never to be inter­pre­ted as con­do­ning vio­lence against Rus­si­ans in gene­ral,” Meta glo­bal affairs pre­si­dent Nick Clegg wro­te on Sunday in a post on the company’s inter­nal plat­form that was seen by Reuters.

“We also do not per­mit calls to assas­si­na­te a head of state…So, in order to remo­ve any ambi­gui­ty about our stance, we are fur­ther nar­ro­wing our gui­d­ance to make expli­cit that we are not allowing calls for the death of a head of sta­te on our plat­forms,” Clegg said.

src: click

Back­ground:

[Wal­ter] Lipp­man argues that, when pro­per­ly deploy­ed in the public inte­rest, the manu­fac­tu­re of con­sent is use­ful and necessa­ry for a cohe­si­ve socie­ty, becau­se, in many cases, “the com­mon inte­rests” of the public are not obvious except upon care­ful ana­ly­sis of the collec­ted data, a cri­ti­cal intel­lec­tu­al exer­cise in which most peop­le are unin­te­res­ted or are inca­pa­ble of doing. The­re­fo­re, most peop­le must have the world sum­ma­ri­zed for them by the well-informed, and will then act accordingly.

That the manu­fac­tu­re of con­sent is capa­ble of gre­at refi­ne­ments no one, I think, denies. The pro­cess by which public opi­ni­ons ari­se is cer­tain­ly no less intri­ca­te than it has appeared in the­se pages, and the oppor­tu­nities for mani­pu­la­ti­on open to anyo­ne who under­stands the pro­cess are plain enough.… [a]s a result of psy­cho­lo­gi­cal rese­arch, cou­pled with the modern means of com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on, the prac­ti­ce of demo­cra­cy has tur­ned a cor­ner. A revo­lu­ti­on is taking place, infi­ni­te­ly more signi­fi­cant than any shif­ting of eco­no­mic power.… Under the impact of pro­pa­gan­da, not necessa­ri­ly in the sinis­ter mea­ning of the word alo­ne, the old con­stants of our thin­king have beco­me varia­bles. It is no lon­ger pos­si­ble, for examp­le, to belie­ve in the ori­gi­nal dog­ma of demo­cra­cy; that the know­ledge nee­ded for the manage­ment of human affairs comes up spon­ta­ne­ous­ly from the human heart. Whe­re we act on that theo­ry we expo­se our­sel­ves to self-deception, and to forms of per­sua­si­on that we can­not veri­fy. It has been demons­tra­ted that we can­not rely upon intui­ti­on, con­sci­ence, or the acci­dents of casu­al opi­ni­on if we are to deal with the world bey­ond our reach.
— Wal­ter Lipp­mann, Public Opi­ni­on, Chap­ter XV

The poli­ti­cal eli­te are mem­bers of the class of peop­le who are inca­pa­ble of accu­rate­ly under­stan­ding, by them­sel­ves, the com­plex “unse­en envi­ron­ment” whe­r­ein the public affairs of the modern sta­te occur; thus, Lipp­mann pro­po­ses that a pro­fes­sio­nal, “spe­cia­li­zed class” collect and ana­ly­ze data, and pre­sent their con­clu­si­ons to the society’s decisi­on makers, who, in their turn, use the “art of per­sua­si­on” to inform the public about the decisi­ons and cir­cum­s­tan­ces affec­ting them.[5]

Public Opi­ni­on pro­po­ses that the incre­a­sed power of pro­pa­gan­da and the spe­cia­li­zed know­ledge requi­red for effec­ti­ve poli­ti­cal decisi­ons have ren­de­red the tra­di­tio­nal noti­on of demo­cra­cy impos­si­ble. The phra­se “manu­fac­tu­re of con­sent” was intro­du­ced, which the aca­de­mics Noam Chom­sky and Edward S. Her­man used as the tit­le of their book Manu­fac­tu­ring Con­sent: The Poli­ti­cal Eco­no­my of the Mass Media (1988). Chom­sky has exten­si­ve­ly cri­ti­ci­zed Lippman’s the­sis as deeply oppo­sed to democracy.

src: click

edit: More back­ground: click

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWL0mxewelk
Kri­tisch, inves­ti­ga­tiv, uner­schro­cken. Was der Repor­ter sonst so gefun­den hat: Ein gepan­zer­tes Fahr­zeug zum rum­fah­ren. Die Per­so­nen­schüt­zer in dem Fahr­zeug, die aber jetzt huma­ni­tär tätig sind, und “Leu­te aus Kiev her­aus­ho­len, und Medi­ka­men­te aus Odes­sa besor­gen”, und nicht mal das ist ihnen jetzt mög­lich… Russ­land bekämpft sogar huma­ni­tä­re Hil­fe! Einen ehe­ma­li­gen bekann­ten Fern­seh­mo­de­ra­tor, jetzt in Uni­form (Dani­el Salem, belieb­tes Motiv, der war schon öfter vor der Kame­ra, Jour­na­lis­ten­netz­wer­ke, nehm ich an), eine inspi­rie­ren­de Anspra­che (“Wir leben auf einem Pla­ne­ten, der Erde heißt, …”), die seit den per­ma­nen­ten Anspra­chen von Selen­skyj popu­lä­re For­de­rung, dass die Nato den ukrai­ni­schen Luft­raum sichern soll, sogar in popu­lä­rer Aus­prä­gung - von vie­len die das for­dern! Agen­tur Bil­der aus dem von Russ­land beschos­se­nen, west­li­chen Mili­tär­stütz­punkt nahe Polen, obwohl der Repor­ter gera­de noch auf dem Weg nach Odes­sa war, eine Anspra­che Selen­sky­js, Clau­dia Major von der Stif­tung Wis­sen­schaft und Poli­tik in Ber­lin, Anna und ihre Kin­der im Kel­ler in Kiew, Agen­tur­bil­der von flüch­ten­den Men­schen, das Phil­har­mo­nie­or­ches­ter in Kiew auf dem Frei­heits­platz, das die Euro­pa­hym­ne spielt. Ode an die Freu­de. (Ton aus dem off: “Gegen die Ohn­macht, die Stil­le und die Angst.”)

from 20 minu­tes ago:

Have: Perl Har­bour, 9/11, ter­ro­rists, I have a dream, a live video­feed direct­ly into US con­gress on a cine­ma sized videow­all, encryp­ted video com­mu­ni­ca­ti­on out of the Ukrai­ne pro­vi­ded by the US mili­ta­ry, pre­pro­du­ced video packa­ge (clo­se the sky over Ukrai­ne, scored to vio­lin music);

Need: No fly zone, if not pos­si­ble, S-300 anti air sys­tems, com­pa­nies lea­ving rus­sia, new tools to be crea­ted to be able to respond quick­ly. Jus­ti­ce to history.

Sear­ching for: “Sen­se in life, if I can not save lives”.

Will get - ano­t­her 800 mil­li­on USD released as secu­ri­ty assi­s­tance.

edit: Also this:

Slo­va­kia has preli­mi­na­ri­ly agreed to pro­vi­de Ukrai­ne with a key Soviet-era air defen­se sys­tem to help defend against Rus­si­an airstrikes, accord­ing to three sources fami­li­ar with the mat­ter, but the US and NATO are still grap­p­ling with how to back­fill that country’s own defen­si­ve capa­bi­li­ties and the trans­fer is not yet assured. 

Accord­ing to two of the sources, Slo­va­kia, one of three NATO allies that have the defen­se sys­tems in ques­ti­on, wants assuran­ces that the sys­tems will be repla­ced immediately. 

If a coun­try pro­vi­ded its S-300s, the sup­ply­ing coun­try is likely to recei­ve the US-made Patri­ot air defen­se mis­si­le sys­tem to back­fill the capa­bi­li­ty it would be giving up, accord­ing to two other sources fami­li­ar with the negotiations. 

Ger­ma­ny and the Nether­lands have alrea­dy publicly announ­ced that they are sen­ding Patri­ots to Slo­va­kia. But inte­gra­ting a new, com­plex air defen­se sys­tem into a country’s exis­ting mili­ta­ry archi­tec­tu­re, as well as trai­ning its for­ces to use it, can take time, one source fami­li­ar with the mat­ter cautioned.

src: click

and this:

US to pro­vi­de Switch­b­la­de dro­nes to Ukrai­ne, sources say

Pre­si­dent Joe Biden announ­ced on Wed­nes­day addi­tio­nal US assi­s­tance to Ukrai­ne inclu­ding dro­nes, and two sources fami­li­ar with the mat­ter tell CNN that, spe­ci­fi­cal­ly, the US will be pro­vi­ding Switch­b­la­de dro­nes, which are small, por­ta­ble so-called kami­ka­ze or sui­ci­de dro­nes that car­ry a war­head and deto­na­te on impact.

src: click

- need a pro­po­nent of that lovely theo­rem no one can veri­fy, but that usual­ly repres­ents the most haw­kish posi­ti­on possible?

Look no fur­ther than the for­mer ambas­sodor to the Ukrai­ne, ous­ted by Trump, Marie Yovanovitch.

She has a new book out.

Also a pro­po­nent of the “Putin is not going to stop with Ukrai­ne, and this is a serious thre­at for Nato coun­tries” the­sis of course --

Oh, and dont for­get the CNN mode­ra­tor that leads in with the fol­lowing ques­ti­on, refe­ren­cing a spe­ci­fic para­graph in Yova­no­vitchs book:

“We have fai­led to call out Russia’s beha­vi­or in a way that Rus­sia finds per­sua­si­ve or taken steps to stop it that Moscow finds com­pel­ling. If we con­ti­nue to fum­ble around [always a gre­at sign, when you make argu­ments non spe­ci­fic], we will some­day, may­be soon, find our­sel­ves in a serious con­fron­ta­ti­on in a con­text not of our choo­sing and not to our advantage.”

- then sta­tes, that this was pre­sci­ent, then asks, how is what we are see­ing today a con­se­quence of what she wro­te - this is the ans­wer that follows:

“I think its the cul­mi­na­ti­on of what we’­ve seen com­ing from the Putin regime, over the last 20 years - 2008, the inva­si­on of Geor­gia, then we had Ukrai­ne in 2014, and now Ukrai­ne again in 2022, and I think Putin will con­ti­nue to expand, ah, the rus­si­an empi­re, the for­mer soviet empi­re as he sees it, unless he is stopped.”

What fol­lows next is a news anchor that starts pran­cing around and miming a clo­sed fist vs. open hand meta­phor into came­ra, giving an exact image, of how serious the for­mer ambassa­dor was when she wrote 

- some­day, may­be [we’ll] find our­sel­ves in a serious con­fron­ta­ti­on in a con­text not of our choo­sing and not to our advantage

to then end his inqui­ry, by finis­hing his ques­ti­on - “Is this [what we cur­r­ent­ly see] that, that we are mee­ting Putin with a clo­sed fist now, ins­tead of an open hand?”

You know - the urgent ques­ti­on, for the public deba­te, that gets broad­cast on CNN the­se days… Oh, and could I inte­rest you in a book thats inde­ed very prescient?

Almost as pre­sci­ent as DWs inter­view with the for­mer US Army Euro­pe Com­man­der Lt. Gene­ral Ben Hod­ges, who under­stands that the com­ing two weeks will be decisi­ve, and is also a pro­po­nent of the the­sis, that… Ah, lis­ten for yourself:

This was Ben Hod­ges at the Munich Secu­ri­ty con­fe­rence three weeks ago, btw.:

You know - DW and him are good friends.
Oh, and Aman­pour of cour­se… (See click and click.)

Oh, and the Ukrai­ne will suc­ceed in a war of attri­ti­on of cour­se espe­cial­ly longterm:

Which the same CNN mode­ra­tor then calls “slow anni­hi­la­ti­on, as US offi­cials were tel­ling Jim Sciut­to”. (Pro­bab­ly in this video, if not, limit the you­tube search fil­ter to the last mon­th and start digging.)

Yeah, who could want that… Nobo­dy could want that, right?

Now, look at the cute litt­le dog­gy! Is it a moral obligation?

Look at the dog­gy once more. 

(The­res a second, ent­i­re­ly unre­la­ted, pup­py dog shot in the video, btw. just for good measure.)

edit: Two dogs in this report. Very popu­lar moti­ve for came­ra crews the­se days. But this time, at least not in the attract image.