The EU’s illusion of relevance: No vision, no power, no future
A garden without a gardener, Western Europe drifts as the world rebuilds
By Timofey Bordachev

The defining trait of today’s Western Europe is not unity or strength – it is the complete absence of a vision for the future. While the United States, Russia, China, India, and even Latin America actively shape and debate their long-term direction, Western Europe remains stuck in nostalgia. Its politicians are not building tomorrow but clinging to yesterday’s comforts. The continent’s political imagination seems limited to one goal: maintaining the status quo of a world that no longer exists.

This backward-looking mentality has transformed the European Union into what can best be described as a “terrarium of like-minded people” – an ecosystem where each actor competes for influence, all the while privately despising the others. In theory, the EU was designed to create a shared geopolitical force. In practice, that unity has been reduced to cynical self-interest and mutual sabotage.

Germany wants to preserve its economic dominance, sending constant signals to Washington that it alone is a stable transatlantic partner. France, despite its limited military capabilities, flexes what remains of its armed forces to assert superiority over Germany and southern Europe. Britain, once an outsider, is suddenly interested in being part of “Europe” again – but only to stir division and feed the fires of confrontation with Russia.

Poland plays its own game, maintaining privileged ties with the US and remaining aloof from Franco-German maneuvering. Italy conducts foreign policy like an independent middle power, working with Washington and Moscow alike. Smaller European states scramble for relevance, knowing full well they are pawns on someone else’s board.

Brussels, meanwhile, produces a steady flow of bureaucratic theater. Figures like Ursula von der Leyen or Kaja Kallas make loud proclamations, but everyone knows they lack real power. These are political actors without a stage, reading from scripts that no longer matter. The spectacle of European unity has become hollow – not only in appearance, but in substance.

Western Europe’s decline didn’t begin yesterday. But the last 15 years have exposed how brittle the EU’s foundations truly are. After the Cold War, the dream of a strong, united Europe gained some traction: a common currency, a common foreign policy, even whispers of strategic autonomy from NATO.

That dream died in Iraq in 2003, when Paris and Berlin briefly opposed Washington’s invasion. But when France rejoined NATO’s command structure in 2007, it signaled the end of any real independence. The Americans, with British support, had reasserted dominance.

The euro, once hailed as the tool of European power, became Germany’s weapon of economic control. Southern and eastern member states were locked into a financial order they could not escape. Germany imposed its will during the eurozone crisis and the pandemic alike, and was hated for it. Smaller nations resented their role as appendages to the German economy, with little recourse.

So when the Ukraine conflict escalated in 2022, the rupture of Russian-German ties was quietly welcomed across the continent. France, which gave little to Kiev, now enjoys more diplomatic prestige than Germany, which gave billions. Poland’s foreign minister practically celebrated the sabotage of Nord Stream – not because it harmed Russia, but because it weakened Berlin.

EU enlargement, once seen as the triumph of European power, has become a liability. For two decades, expanding eastward was treated as a geopolitical project aimed at absorbing former Soviet spaces. But it failed to give Western Europe more clout with Washington. The new members did not submit to Berlin or Paris; they looked to the US instead. In the end, the EU overreached, alienated Moscow, and gained nothing substantial in return.

Having failed at building a real foreign policy, the EU is now desperately trying to preserve what it has. But without a dream of the future, politics loses meaning. Western European life has become a loop of managing decline, while tensions within the bloc grow sharper.

Britain may have left the EU, but geopolitical pressure has pushed it back into the game. Unable to solve its own domestic crises – with four prime ministers in three years – London doubles down on anti-Russian rhetoric to stay relevant. But it doesn’t want to fight, so it pushes its continental allies to do it instead. It’s classic British strategy: let others bleed.

Most Germans would love to restore ties with Russia and get back to cheap energy and easy profits. But it can’t. The Americans are firmly entrenched on German soil, and Berlin’s military-industrial elite wants NATO spending to continue. Southern Europe, impoverished and increasingly resentful, can no longer sustain German prosperity. France hopes to exploit this, imagining itself as Europe’s new nuclear umbrella. Macron talks big, but everyone knows he rarely delivers.

This brings us to 2025. As tensions with Russia and China rise, EU leaders have been lining up to visit Washington. Except, of course, for the Germans, who are still trying to form a government after chaotic elections. From Poland to France, each leader went to ask Trump for preferential treatment. Divide and rule is still the American playbook, and the Western Europeans keep falling for it.

In the East, Hungary and Slovakia have had enough. Years of lectures from Brussels on LGBT rights and liberal values have created deep resentment. They now speak openly of aligning with Russia or China. Spain and Italy, meanwhile, are refusing to see Moscow as a threat. Meloni deals with Washington bilaterally and doesn’t pretend to represent broader European interests.

The European Commission, tasked with representing the EU, has become a parody of itself. Kaja Kallas, recently named High Representative for Foreign Affairs, immediately overstepped her role by demanding tens of billions in new aid for Ukraine. The backlash was swift. In the EU, power over money stays with national governments. Even von der Leyen, as compromised as she is, knows better than to touch those coffers without permission.

What is left of Western Europe today is a political shell. A group of aging powers clinging to past glories, locked in competition with each other, lacking the will to act but refusing to step aside. Their one shared goal: to be seen in the room when Washington, Moscow, and Beijing make decisions. But it won’t be as equals – it would be as supplicants.

For now, the Americans hold the leash. Only the US can impose discipline on its European satellites and give their politics a sense of direction. Russia watches all of this with measured patience. Because ultimately, if stability returns to Europe, it will be because Washington permits it – not because Brussels earned it.

This article was first published by the magazine Profile and was translated and edited by the RT team.

https://www.rt.com/news/616122-eus-illusion-of-relevance/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

How the West Plays Politics With International Terrorism
20 April 2025 by Larry C. Johnson

So much for the aphorism, one picture is worth a thousand words. I’m going to show you four images — actually, they are images of statistical tables — and use fewer than 1000 words to describe their meaning.

The images of the following tables, which are copied from the US Department of State’s Annex of Statistical Information on Terrorism for 2022 and 2023, demonstrate that Iran is not the number one sponsor of terrorism since 2018, and that the US Government is playing politics with the term, terrorism— embracing some terrorists when convenient and labeling others as terrorists, who are engaged in acts of war.

Consider the first table, which presents the groups who carried out the most terrorist attacks between 2018 and 2019. Seven of the ten groups are Sunni Islamists, and reportedly have received funding from Gulf Arabs, Turkey and Western intelligence organizations. The other three — Communist Party of the Philippines, Baloch Liberation Army, and National Liberation Army — are not inspired by a religious doctrine. Not a single one of these ten groups is supported by, funded by or trained by Iran. Not one!

Let me direct your attention to the group ranked number nine in terms of terrorist attacks — that is Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), whose former head is now the acting leader of Syria. And guess what? Representatives of the US government, as well as members of Congress, are embracing Mr. Jawlani, who headed up HTS until assuming control of the government of Syria. You can be number nine on the terrorist hit parade, but if it suits the United States, you are absolved of your sins and elevated to being the leader of a country.

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/2022_Statistical_Annex_Final__508_Compliant.pdf

The next Table tells the real story — the Top 10 groups that killed the most people are all radical Sunni Islamists. Again, not a single one has any affiliation with Iran. Just the opposite — Iran considers ISIS an enemy of Iran and has fought in Syria against ISIS elements.

Now, watch the political magic happen in 2023– suddenly Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) all make the Top 10. Hmmm… what happened in 2023? Oh yes. That would be the military raid launched by Hamas and the PIJ on both military and civilian targets in Israel on October 7. The Houthis, who had been fighting a war with Saudi Arabia since 2015, made the list because of their efforts to shutter maritime traffic headed to and from Israeli ports as a gesture of support for the Palestinian people. And Hezbollah? They launched rocket and missile strikes, primarily on Israeli military installations, but hey, in the US book of selective labeling, that is terrorism.

https://2021-2025.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2023_Statistical_Annex_Edited__508_Compliant-FINAL.pdf

While these groups — all are tied to Iran in some way — are labeled as terrorists for the number of attacks in 2023, how many did they actually kill? For that answer, look at Table 2.2. Damn! Only Hamas and the Houthis made the Top 10, with Hamas garnering the number one spot because of the fatalities on October 7 and the Houthis, getting the terrorist label because they are carrying out military attacks against the Saudis and civilian maritime traffic in the Red Sea.

These tables illustrate both the hypocrisy and dishonesty of the analysts who assembled them. The claim that Hamas is a major terrorist group is debunked by the statistics collected by Israel’s Foreign Ministry over the last 25 years. I have discussed that evidence in my previous post, written almost a year ago, The Hard Facts About Palestinian Terrorism Debunk Western Narrative.

And there is clear evidence challenging the claim that Hamas killed all of the Israeli citizens who died on October 7. Max Blumenthal, writing at the Grayzone, has presented credible evidence exonerating Hamas of the body count claimed by the US intelligence community: 

Blumenthal has reported on testimonies and evidence indicating that Israeli forces, in their efforts to repel Hamas attackers and prevent abductions, fired upon or shelled areas where Israeli civilians were present, leading to additional Israeli casualties.

Specifically, Haaretz and other sources have confirmed that the Israeli military invoked the “Hannibal Directive” on October 7, which is a policy directing soldiers to use force to prevent the capture of Israeli personnel, even at the risk of harming hostages. 

In the case of the Nova music festival, an Israeli investigation found that an IDF helicopter killed Israeli civilians during the chaos, a fact highlighted by Blumenthal and others.

Blumenthal’s reporting draws on survivor testimonies and Israeli media reports that show some Israeli commanders made the decision to shell houses with both hostages and attackers inside to prevent further abductions, resulting in civilian deaths.

And here is another question — Why did the US government NOT identify the Houthis as one of the biggest terrorist killers in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022? Incompetence?

Leaving Hamas and the Houthis aside, we still have the same pattern revealed in Table 2.3 from the 2022 Annex — eight out of the ten groups identified as the biggest terrorist killers in 2023 are radical Sunnis with no affiliation with Iran.

These are not my facts. I am simply reporting the data provided by the US government, courtesy of the intelligence community. Apparently, the policy wonks in Washington are ignoring the intelligence. Hence, a closing aphorism… Ignorance is bliss. I think this calls for a R.E.M. appearance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYOKMUTTDdA&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fsonar21.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY

https://sonar21.com/how-the-west-plays-politics-with-international-terrorism/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

TID REPORT – REGILUS
DELIBERATE STARVATION: THE FINAL PHASE OF THE WAR ON GAZA

What Israel is executing in Gaza today is not just a war. It is an engineered collapse of life itself. Bombs were the first phase. The siege is the second. And now, starvation—a cold, silent weapon—is being used to finish what aerial bombardment began.

The numbers are not abstract. They are intentional metrics of suffering. Fifty-one thousand Palestinians killed. Nineteen thousand of them children. That was not enough. Now the plan is to let those who survived the airstrikes die with empty stomachs, failing organs, and shattered immune systems. There is no ambiguity here. The blockade is not a strategic inconvenience. It is a death sentence.

For over 50 days, Israel has blocked the entry of food, fuel, medicine, and aid convoys into Gaza, despite direct ICJ rulings and ICC warrants already in place. Humanitarian groups, from the UN to independent NGOs, have stated unequivocally: this is starvation as policy. And when Israeli ministers like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir openly declare their intention to starve 2.3 million civilians—most of them children—this is not an intelligence failure. This is a genocidal blueprint being executed in real time.

The so-called “General’s Plan,” now acknowledged by Israeli and foreign policy analysts alike, was never theory. It was a document of ethnic cleansing masked as military logic: starve the North, pressure the South, break resistance by ending the civilian will to live. Trump’s public endorsement of the permanent displacement of Palestinians adds the final layer. The famine is not a miscalculation. It is the tool.

The facts on the ground are unflinching. Aid convoys attacked. Bakers out of flour. Infants dying for lack of milk. Blood donors too anemic to save anyone. Oxfam, WFP, MSF, UNRWA—all say the same thing: **this is not a humanitarian failure—it is a weapon.

Aid isn’t just being blocked. It’s being destroyed. Settlers loot trucks. Israeli soldiers shoot civilians at flour lines. And when international aid workers are killed by precision drone strikes, Israel shrugs and calls it a mistake.

The truth is simple: Israel is trying to erase Gaza by turning off the food.
This is not collateral damage. This is the end goal. A ghosted land. A displaced people. A silence where there once was life.

And where is the world? Holding press conferences. Filing appeals. Begging the arsonist to hand over a bucket. Meanwhile, the children of Gaza eat weeds, share one meal a day from burned-out kitchens, and die with names that will never make a headline.

Let no one say this is a crisis.
It is a crime.
And let no one say it is complicated.
It is planned.

This is genocide with spreadsheets.
This is a siege dressed in legality.
And history will remember every nation, every company, every algorithm that stayed silent—
or worse, helped it happen.

Filed and prepared for immediate print.
Regilus, for TID.
April 2025.

By Maryam Qarehgozlou

The Israeli regime has been blocking critical humanitarian aid, especially food, to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip for over 52 days, marking the longest aid blockade since the onset of the genocidal war more than 18 months ago.

The deprivation of the besieged Palestinian territory of essential resources, leading to catastrophic shortages of food, safe water, shelter, and medical supplies, has exacerbated the already dire humanitarian crisis there, as reported by various local and international aid and rights groups.

While the indiscriminate Israeli bombardment of Gaza has claimed the lives of over 51,000 Palestinians so far, more than 2.3 million inhabitants of the narrow strip now face an even greater threat—a famine that could lead to the imminent death of the entire population, with the most vulnerable groups, such as the elderly and children, at the highest risk.

Last week, pediatricians at the Nasser Medical Complex, one of the largest last-functioning hospitals in southern Gaza, raised alarms about the life-threatening danger posed to newborn babies, primarily due to severe shortages of baby food and medicine caused by the Israeli blockade.

The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported a staggering 80 percent increase in acute malnutrition cases among children from February to March, with 3,696 children newly admitted for treatment.

“Food consumption in Gaza has sharply deteriorated due to the blockade on the entry of humanitarian aid and other critical supplies now in its seventh week,” OCHA said in a report.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has been forced to shut down all the bakeries it ran throughout the Strip due to a severe lack of fuel and flour, leaving most residents reliant on a single daily meal provided by UN-run kitchens.

https://www.theinteldrop.org/2025/04/23/gazas-slow-death-how-aid-blockade-has-pushed-palestinians-to-the-brink-tid-special-report/

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

         Gus Leonisky

         POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.