The arrogance here is nothing new, yet it still leaps out at me. Look at the fellow to the left – the very idea that a country other than the US would impose sanctions amuses him.
The Russian Embassy was buttoned up pretty tight yesterday when I went down to ask about covid regulations on land border crossings. I did find a UK page that seems to indicate only a PCR test is required though.
I find use of the phrase „The Homeland“ chilling, with overtones of empire, of fascism.
The Bush administration briefly used „coalition of the willing“ to refer to the countries who supported, militarily or politically, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and subsequent military presence in post-invasion Iraq. The list released by the White House in March 2003 included 46 members.[2] In April 2003, the list was updated to include 49 countries, though it was reduced to 48 after Costa Rica objected[3] to its inclusion. Of the 48 countries on the list, four contributed troops to the invasion force (the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Poland). An additional 37 countries provided some number of troops to support military operations after the invasion was complete.
The list of coalition members provided by the White House included several nations that did not intend to participate in actual military operations. Some of them, such as Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau and Solomon Islands, did not have standing armies. However, through the Compact of Free Association, citizens of the Marshall Islands, Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia are guaranteed US national status and therefore are allowed to serve in the US military. The members of these island nations have deployed in a combined Pacific force consisting of Guamanian, Hawaiian and Samoan reserve units. They have been deployed twice to Iraq. The government of one country, the Solomon Islands, listed by the White House as a member of the coalition, was apparently unaware of any such membership and promptly denied it.
…
In December 2008, University of Illinois Professor Scott Althaus reported that he had learned that the White House was editing and back-dating revisions to the list of countries in the coalition.[6][7] Althaus found that some versions of the list had been entirely removed from the record, and that others contradicted one another, as opposed to the procedure of archiving original documents and supplementing them with later revisions and updates.[2]
By August 2009, all non-U.S./UK coalition members had withdrawn from Iraq.[8] As a result, the Multinational Force – Iraq was renamed and reorganized to United States Forces – Iraq as of January 1, 2010. Thus the Coalition of the Willing came to an official end.
BBC:
Deutschland muss laut Habeck auch künftig Gas aus Autokratien beziehen
Der Bund könne Energie weiterhin nicht nur aus Demokratien kaufen, sagte der Wirtschaftsminister.Aus Sicht von Bundeswirtschaftsminister Robert Habeck (Grüne) kann Deutschland, um den Energiebedarf zu decken, auch künftig nicht nur mit Demokratien zusammenarbeiten. „Viele Opec-Staaten sind problematisch“, sagte der Politiker der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung vor einem mehrtägigen Besuch in Katar und den Vereinigten Arabischen Emiraten. „Aber zwischen einem nicht demokratischen Staat, bei dem die Situation der Menschenrechte problematisch ist, und einem autoritären Staat, der einen aggressiven, völkerrechtswidrigen Krieg vor unserer Tür führt, gibt es noch mal einen Unterschied. Wir können nicht alle Länder von Lieferungen ausschließen.“
Ich finde mich vorurteilsbeladen und ahnungslos, (nicht zum ersten Mal).
The museum here has by far the most extensive exhibit I’ve seen on how the Nazis transformed Polish society, controlling print and broadcast media, imposing curfews on non-Germans, rationing food and other essentials according to perceived race. It’s certainly the most political exhibit.
A docent saw me continually using my camera and asked if I was filming or taking photos – filming is forbidden but photos are fine. I showed I was taking photos and also that I spoke no Polish. She disappeared and came back a few minutes later with this book in a number of languages, asked if I spoke English, and handed me the English version. I sat down and leafed through it for a bit, finding it really thorough and interesting on a number of facets of the prison’s history, got to the end and handed it back to her. „No“, she said, pushing it back to me, „souvenir – souvenir“. I felt touched and grateful.
