CARICOM Disarray on UN General Assembly “Status of Jerusalem” Vote

Submitted by Mohammed Degia

Al-Quds. Photo courtesy of worldbulletin.net

The Caribbean Community group of countries or CARICOM has for a long time feigned at having a common foreign policy. While this may be true with respect to some issues on the international agenda, particularly in the area of development, this pretence of unity dissipates on high-stake political matters. One only has to look at the USA invasion of Iraq, the China/Taiwan recognition question, the Shiprider Agreement, Article 98 Agreements, ALBA or Venezuela. Add to this list, yesterday’s UN General Assembly vote on the status of Jerusalem.

Donald Trump and his administration’s many shenanigans have dominated the news for many months. For the past two and a half weeks, the events surrounding Trump’s announcement that the USA recognises Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and will relocate its Embassy to there from its current location in Tel Aviv have been paid considerable attention to worldwide.

Following this unilateral announcement by the Trump administration and the concern expressed by the international community, a draft UN Security Council resolution was tabled in response. The text was put to a vote on Monday 18th and expectedly the US used its veto to thwart its adoption. The draft document spoke to the need to abide by previous Security Council resolutions on the status of Jerusalem. If it had been adopted, the resolution would have affirmed “that any decisions and actions which purport to have altered, the character, status or demographic composition of the Holy City of Jerusalem have no legal effect, are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with relevant resolutions of the Security Council.” It would also have called on all States “to refrain from the establishment of diplomatic missions in the Holy City of Jerusalem.” Fourteen of the fifteen Security Council members- the other four permanent members and all 10 non-permanent members- voted in favour.

The US Ambassador to the UN, former South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley once again showcased her diplomatic immaturity and her seeming intent to rival one of her predecessors, John Bolton, in his disastrous stint. After her tirade at the Council vote, she followed up with tweets and a letter to UN member states warning them not to support an anticipated UN General Assembly resolution on the issue. According to her, the US would take names of those who voted in favour of the resolution. Not to be outdone, Trump also threatened countries if they supported the resolution, contending that votes would be watched and aid cut.

A UN General Assembly resolution from 1950 called “Uniting for Peace” makes a provision for the General Assembly to consider a matter immediately “if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression”. Acting in their respective roles as Chair of the Arab Group and Chair of the Summit of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Yemen and Turkey requested the President of the General Assembly to resume the tenth emergency special session of the General Assembly and tabled the same draft resolution for the deliberation of the special session.

Final tally of UNGA vote on “Status of Jerusalem” resolution. Photo courtesy of un.org

UN General Assembly resolutions are non-binding so this would have only moral weight and be a symbolic demonstration of the international community’s opposition to Trump’s actions. The resolution was adopted by the General Assembly with a vote of 128 in favour, 9 against and 35 abstaining. The USA and Israel cast negative votes naturally. They were joined by Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau, four of the set of Pacific islands that always vote on these types of resolutions in the way they are directed to by certain countries. Guatemala, Honduras and Togo rounded out the no votes, unable obviously to withstand the pressure they had been placed under. Those abstaining were a medley of African, Asian, Caribbean, Latin American and Eastern European countries along with Australia and Canada. A similar assortment of African, Asian, Caribbean, Latin American and Eastern European countries numbering 21 did not participate in the voting. Thus 128 countries expressed unreserved backing for the resolution while in one way or another 65 did not support it. Although it was a decisive statement of validation for the status of Jerusalem and a rejection of Trump’s action, it was in no way an overwhelming victory. Of particular note is that Nikki Haley has invited these 65 countries to a reception on January 3rd to thank them for their friendship.

UNGA voting screen showing breakdown of how countries voted on “Status of Jerusalem” resolution. Photo courtesy of trendsmap.com

I will not delve into the international legal arguments about the status of Jerusalem and the illegal nature of the unilateral US action. Enough has been written about that. Neither will I, even though I am tempted to, address certain stark truths about Palestine and Jerusalem such as:

  1. the fact that the Palestinian Authority is a corrupt entity that colludes fully with Israel and the USA in the occupation of Palestine and acts as an enforcer for the Zionists;
  2. the so-called Muslim world is a huge mess and many of its tyrants and despots, led by the Egyptians, aid and abet the oppression of Muslims and Christians in Palestine. I had touched on the Egyptian governments hypocrisy on Palestine when I wrote about an Egyptian Minister’s racist remarks last year;
  3. Oslo and the so-called peace process is a farce that was created specifically to legitimise the colonial settler entity of Israel and ensure that if the Palestinians do ever have a state, it will be an unviable set of Bantustans. Edward Said tackled this masterfully in his “Peace and its Discontents.”

I want to touch on CARICOM and the way some of the group chose to vote or not vote. CARICOM countries speak often and loudly about how powerful, large states should not marginalise those that are small or weaker. They stress the importance of multilateralism and international law in this regard and how important these norms are in ensuring all voices are heard. One wonders therefore how seven of the fourteen CARICOM countries that are members of the UN found themselves not supporting this resolution. A resolution which is clear cut about international law and the necessity of states to abide by it. The unilateral declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is in direct contravention of Security Council resolutions and international law. Two key allies of Israel and the USA that are permanent members of the Security Council –France and the UK- voted in favour of the resolution. That is telling. Yet, Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Haiti, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago saw it necessary to reject international law. St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Lucia did not think it even necessary to participate in the voting. This is a preferred course of action employed for many years by some CARICOM countries and especially those from the OECS when there is a controversial vote. I have always thought it to be a cowardly way to deal with an uncomfortable subject.

Dealing with difficult topics is not something we in the Caribbean like to do and the reality is that the meetings of the Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR) and Heads of Government are largely talk shops where documents are churned out yearly with no clear strategy and no implementation of what little is contained in those documents. The region operates mostly in reactionary mode and is constantly playing catch up. I am unsure whether any attempt was made to coordinate a CARICOM position on the Jerusalem issue. I would not be at all surprised, based on my knowledge and experience of the region, to hear that there wasn’t any. Moreover, the region is prone to disunity and larger countries are well aware that the carrot and stick approach deployed in various ways is an effective tool to split the group and achieve their goals.

The way forward for CARICOM is a practical one. First, how can the region progress beyond this inertia to an actual dynamic foreign-policy coordinating process which produces bold, strategic actions? Second, how can the region move from paying lip service to multilateralism and international law to acting in a principled manner whenever these cogs of the global system are compromised? The answer rests in the two complimenting each other. The regional integration process requires a revival, both from a political perspective and at the bureaucratic level in the Secretariat. A CARICOM that is unified in understanding the challenges and opportunities presented by the international arena should certainly be able to confront them much more meaningfully and successfully. In addition, a CARICOM whose bonds are strong will be a much more difficult prospect for countries that depend on divide and rule and carrot and stick methods of diplomacy.

Of course this is all theoretical and easy to spell out on paper. In reality, we have a group of small islands clinging tightly to notions of sovereignty and political leaders in possession of large egos and for whom any sense of relinquishing a minuscule amount of power is beyond comprehension. This is one of the main reasons why the regional integration project has not been realised. The movement and interaction of people throughout the region has been an ongoing feature of life in the Caribbean for as long as anyone can remember. Instead of building on these deep people to people links through the creation of strong institutions, political leaders have simply paid lip service and engaged in useless rhetoric. It is time for the people of the region to demand more of their political leaders and hold them accountable.

251 thoughts on “CARICOM Disarray on UN General Assembly “Status of Jerusalem” Vote


  1. Happy Holidays trumpturds…

    “House Republicans’ plot to help Trump fire Mueller just backfired in their faces
    BY LUCIA BRAWLEY

    PUBLISHED ON DECEMBER 21, 2017
    1.6k
    SHARESSHARE THIS STORY

    Sources who witnessed the House Intelligence Committee’s witch hunt to discredit Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump-Russia collusion saw the Republican plot to scapegoat deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe backfire badly today.

    In their efforts to make McCabe seem biased against Trump, they turned him into a corroborating witness for fired FBI director James Comey.

    After the leak of emails FBI agents’ emails calling Trump an “idiot,” the Republican-led Intelligence Committee tried to prove in private testimony this week that McCabe had given Hillary Clinton special treatment in his investigation of her emails, as opposed to more probing treatment of Trump’s alleged involvement with Russia.

    Instead, McCabe confirmed Comey’s June Senate testimony in which he said under oath that he had told members of the FBI leadership about the president’s attempts to quash their investigation into now-convicted former Trump national security advisor General Mike Flynn.

    McCabe also corroborated Comey’s account of Trump requesting an “oath of loyalty.”

    At the time, Comey did not mention any names to the Senate Intelligence Committee. By admitting that Comey had confided Trump’s attempted obstruction of justice to him, McCabe validated Comey’s testimony.

    After Comey’s refusal to drop the investigation, Trump fired him, in a second example of obstruction of justice. The president even admitted to NBC’s Lester Holt at the time that he had fired Comey because of the Russia investigation.

    Trump’s firing of his own FBI chief triggered Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s appointment of Special Prosecutor Mueller, who is now zeroing in on the president.

    Hence the president and his Russia-backed House Republicans’ insidious scheme to try to discredit Mueller and the FBI as biased, even though Comey effectively ended Hillary Clinton’s presidential chances and Mueller is a lifelong Republican, much lauded by both parties.

    The Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have problems of their own, as committee chair Devin Nunes has quasi-recused himself due to his intricate involvement in Trump’s Russia cover-up. Trey “Benghazi” Gowdy has since stood in as an equally biased chair.

    By calling deputy FBI director McCabe in this week for two 7-hour-long hearings, Republicans had hoped to put the final nail in the coffin of the investigation into the president and his inner circle.

    Instead, they sealed their own fates.

    Follow Lucia Brawley on Twitter

    Add your name to millions demanding Congress take action on the President’s crimes. IMPEACH TRUMP & PENCE!”


  2. @ Are-we-there-yet
    What a masterful posts last night.

    It puts you squarely among the 1%….. that have a clue of what is happening around us.

    The remaining 99% are exactly as the animals in the forest of Vietnam would have been- as they watched the Vietcong dig tunnels, store provisions and arms ….. while they saw U.S.A warplanes and helicopters buzzing overhead….

    There must have been many ‘wise’ explanations among the monkeys and donkeys about what was happening then too… and none likely included a great war among superior beings -fighting over shiite, about which the animals was not even AWARE.

    ….when the naplam and agent orange began to rain down, the animals would still have been clueless…… Bushie wonders how many died….?


  3. Bear in mind when reading that the CARIBBEAN is a majority Black region and Haitians ARE Caribbean people…..

    “Trump just made his most racist comments about black people yet in unhinged Oval Office meeting
    BY COLIN TAYLOR

    PUBLISHED ON DECEMBER 23, 2017
    1.9k
    SHARESSHARE THIS STORY

    A new report from the New York Times has exposed the repulsively racist terms that President Donald Trump openly uses behind the scenes to describe immigrants and refugees seeking to make new lives in America.

    In June, President Trump called a policy meeting to discuss American immigration policy. Late to his own meeting, he reportedly stormed in with a list of visas that had been issued to immigrants and their countries of origin.

    In a fit of rage, he began to read off the paper and said the folllwing, as reported by the New York Times:

    Haiti had sent 15,000 people. They “all have AIDS,” he grumbled, according to one person who attended the meeting and another person who was briefed about it by a different person who was there.

    Forty thousand had come from Nigeria, Mr. Trump added. Once they had seen the United States, they would never “go back to their huts” in Africa, recalled the two officials, who asked for anonymity to discuss a sensitive conversation in the Oval Office.

    Trump, a man who wears his astounding ignorance on his sleeve, immediately grasped for the crudest stereotypes he could to communicate his utter disgust at the idea of black people arriving in the United States.

    Ever the germophobe, the language he uses is evocative of cleanliness – asserting that black people are disease-ridden and lived in squalid poverty – a clear indication that he doesn’t consider them to be people.

    White supremacists often cling to the white/black = clean/dirty dichotomy and use it to justify their genocidal behavior – there’s a reason it’s called ethnic “cleansing.”

    When Rex Tillerson pointed out that most of the people given visas to the United States were arriving only for temporary visits, he was met with a fiery rebuke from then-Secretary of Homeland Security and now Chief of Staff Gen. John Kelly and Steven Miller for issuing so many visas in the first place – which is your periodic reminder that the man who used to run Guantanamo Bay but is now lauded as “the adult in the room” is just as much a racist monster as the rest of them.

    The White House Press Secretary has denied the reports and called them “lies;” other officials “did not deny the overall description of the meeting” but attest that the President “never said AIDS.”

    While this kind of appalling racism is hardly surprising at this point from our nation’s laziest and stupidest president, it is a shocking reminder of just how deeply prejudice and hate are interwoven into his decaying mind – and all the terrifying implications associated with it.

    “He’s always been fearful where other cultures are concerned and always had anxiety about food and safety when he travels. His objectification and demonization of people who are different has festered for decades” notes Trump biographer said Michael D’Antonio.

    Trump is truly one of the most pathetic men to ever walk the earth, let alone hold the Oval Office. An avatar of humanity’s worst impulses, he is a most loathsome creature animated entirely by fear and insecurity, by spite and hatred, by gluttony and excess.

    We must rid ourselves of him as quickly as we can.

    Add your name to millions demanding Congress take action on the President’s crimes. IMPEACH TRUMP & PENCE!”


  4. These squatters on native lands who seek to steal everything from African/Caribbean people, because they are natural born thieves will still demean, degrade and insult your very existence…even if you are dumb enough to support, follow or vote for them, it is their evil nature….

    Black people should hs5ve developed the strength long ago to put them firmly in their place and help dismantle that level of evil and stain on the earth,…they are minorities on the earth, it is time they are treated as such….and reminded that they are minorities.


  5. Legal Rights and Title of Sovereignty of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel and Palestine under International Law

    By the late brilliant legal mind, Howard Grief, who spent two decades unearthing the Legal Rights and Sovereignty of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel and Palestine under International Law.

    Howard Grief

    The objective of this paper is to set down in a brief, yet clear and precise manner the legal rights and title of sovereignty of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and Palestine under international law. These rights originated in the global political and legal settlement, conceived during World War I and carried into execution in the post-war years between 1919 and 1923. Insofar as the Ottoman Turkish Empire was concerned, the settlement embraced the claims of the Zionist Organization, the Arab National movement, the Kurds, the Assyrians and the Armenians.

    As part of the settlement in which the Arabs received most of the lands formerly under Turkish sovereignty in the Middle East, the whole of Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan, was reserved exclusively for the Jewish people as their national home and future independent state.

    Under the terms of the settlement that were made by the Principal Allied Powers consisting of Britain, France, Italy and Japan, there would be no annexation of the conquered Turkish territories by any of the Powers, as had been planned in the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of May 9 and 16, 1916. Instead, these territories, including the peoples for whom they were designated, would be placed under the Mandates System and administered by an advanced nation until they were ready to stand by themselves. The Mandates System was established and governed by Article 22 of the Covenant of the League of Nations, contained in the Treaty of Versailles and all the other peace treaties made with the Central Powers – Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey. The Covenant was the idea of US President Woodrow Wilson and contained in it his program of Fourteen Points of January 8, 1918, while Article 22 which established the Mandates System, was largely the work of Jan Christiaan Smuts who formulated the details in a memorandum that became known as the Smuts Resolution, officially endorsed by the Council of Ten on January 30, 1919, in which Palestine as envisaged in the Balfour Declaration was named as one of the mandated states to be created. The official creation of the country took place at the San Remo Peace Conference where the Balfour Declaration was adopted by the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers as the basis for the future administration of Palestine which would henceforth be recognized as the Jewish National Home.

    The moment of birth of Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty thus took place at the same time Palestine was created a mandated state, since it was created for no other reason than to reconstitute the ancient Jewish state of Judea in fulfillment of the Balfour Declaration and the general provisions of Article 22 of the League Covenant. This meant that Palestine from the start was legally a Jewish state in theory that was to be guided towards independence by a Mandatory or Trustee, also acting as Tutor, and who would take the necessary political, administrative and economic measures to establish the Jewish National Home. The chief means for accomplishing this was by encouraging large-scale Jewish immigration to Palestine, which would eventually result in making Palestine an independent Jewish state, not only legally but also in the demographic and cultural senses.

    The details for the planned independent Jewish state were set forth in three basic documents, which may be termed the founding documents of mandated Palestine and the modern Jewish state of Israel that arose from it. These were the San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1920, the Mandate for Palestine conferred on Britain by the Principal Allied Powers and confirmed by the League of Nations on July 24, 1922, and the Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 23, 1920. These founding documents were supplemented by the Anglo-American Convention of December 3, 1924 respecting the Mandate for Palestine. It is of supreme importance to remember always that these documents were the source or well-spring of Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty over Palestine and the Land of Israel under international law, because of the near-universal but completely false belief that it was the United Nations General Assembly Partition Resolution of November 29, 1947 that brought the State of Israel into existence. In fact, the UN resolution was an illegal abrogation of Jewish legal rights and title of sovereignty to the whole of Palestine and the Land of Israel, rather than an affirmation of such rights or progenitor of them.

    The San Remo Resolution converted the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917 from a mere statement of British policy expressing sympathy with the goal of the Zionist movement to create a Jewish state into a binding act of international law that required specific fulfillment by Britain of this object in active cooperation with the Jewish people. Under the Balfour Declaration as originally issued by the British government, the latter only promised to use their best endeavors to facilitate the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people. But under the San Remo Resolution of April 24-25, 1920, the Principal Allied Powers as a cohesive group charged the British government with the responsibility or legal obligation of putting into effect the Balfour Declaration. A legal onus was thus placed on Britain to ensure that the Jewish National Home would be duly established. This onus the British Government willingly accepted because at the time the Balfour Declaration was issued and adopted at the San Remo Peace Conference, Palestine was considered a valuable strategic asset and communications center, and so a vital necessity for protecting far-flung British imperial interests extending from Egypt to India. Britain was fearful of having any major country or power other than itself, especially France or Germany, positioned alongside the Suez Canal.


  6. In the spirit of the season and my belief in forgiveness….I shall forgive that women that dropped you on your head as a child. The meetings were behind closed doors
    How many haitians have been invited to live in barbados back in 2010 after the earthquake you didnt want any to come even for medical treatment.


  7. “The Mandate for Palestine implemented both the Balfour Declaration and Article 22 of the League Covenant, i.e. the San Remo Resolution. All four of these acts were building blocks in the legal structure that was created for the purpose of bringing about the establishment of an independent Jewish state. The Balfour Declaration in essence stated the principle or object of a Jewish state. The San Remo Resolution gave it the stamp of international law. The Mandate furnished all the details and means for the realization of the Jewish state. As noted, Britain’s chief obligation as Mandatory, Trustee and Tutor was the creation of the appropriate political, administrative and economic conditions to secure the Jewish state. All 28 articles of the Mandate were directed to this objective, including those articles that did not specifically mention the Jewish National Home. The Mandate created a right of return for the Jewish people to Palestine and the right to establish settlements on the land throughout the country in order to create the envisaged Jewish state.”

    “In conferring the Mandate for Palestine on Britain, a contractual bond was created between the Principal Allied Powers and Britain, the former as Mandator and the latter as Mandatory. The Principal Allied Powers designated the Council of the League of Nations as the supervisor of the Mandatory to ensure that all the terms of the Mandate Charter would be strictly observed. The Mandate was drawn up in the form of a Decision of the League Council confirming the Mandate rather than making it part of a treaty with Turkey signed by the High Contracting Parties, as originally contemplated. To ensure compliance with the Mandate, the Mandatory had to submit an annual report to the League Council reporting on all its activities and the measures taken during the preceding year to realize the purpose of the Mandate and for the fulfillment of its obligations. This also created a contractual relationship between the League of Nations and Britain.”


  8. You see me in charge of immigration in Barbados…wuh if they could let in countless thieves and criminals like Del Mastros from Canada and others criminals from US, UK, Syria, India and Europe and have been doing so since the 60s…I dont see why they can let in 5 Haitians and their families per year….

    Canada has the space and can take even more Haitians, remember it’s not your land, you are a squatter and invader on native lands, just as white Americans are in US.

    ……Barbados has limited space.

    The meetings were held behind closed doors, but NOTHING stays behind closed doors in the US..nothing.


  9. Trump is a racist dog , The haitian people voted for Trump and Trump Xmas gift to the Haitian people is calling them diseased infected carries of Aids


  10. “The mutilation of the Mandate Charter was continued by the United Nations when this new world organization considered the question of Palestine. On August 31, 1947, the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) proposed an illegal partition plan which recognized Arab national rights in western Palestine, specifically in the areas of western Galilee, Judea, Samaria, the southern coastal plain from Ashdod to the Egyptian frontier and a portion of the western Negev including Beersheba and what became Eilat. It apparently did not occur to the members of the Committee representing 11 states headed by Swedish Chief Justice Emil Sandstrom, that the UN did not have the legal authority to partition the country in favor of the Arabs of Palestine who were not the national beneficiary of the Mandate entitled to self-determination.”

    “The trampling of the legal rights of the Jewish people to the whole of Palestine by the United Nations was in clear violation of the Mandate which forbade partition and also Article 80 of the UN Charter which, in effect, prevented the alteration of Jewish rights granted under the Mandate whether or not a trusteeship was set up to replace it, which could only be done by a prior agreement made by the states directly concerned.”

    “The illegal partition plan, with some territorial modifications made in the original majority plan presented by UNSCOP, was then approved by the General Assembly on November 29, 1947 as Resolution 181 (II).”

    “The Jewish Agency for Palestine, recoiling from the loss of six million Jews in the Holocaust and trying to salvage something from British misrule of Palestine, accepted this illegal Resolution. By doing so, it lent credence to the false idea that Palestine belonged to both Arabs and Jews, which was an idea foreign to the San Remo Resolution, the Mandate and the Franco-British Boundary Convention of December 23, 1920. The Jewish Agency should have relied on these three documents exclusively in declaring the Jewish state over all of Palestine, even if it was unable to control all areas of the country, following the example of what was done in Syria and Lebanon during World War II.”


  11. For gods sake I though wading through your own shit was stupid enough, but to believe unnamed sources 6 months after the supposed fact is just pathetic. In canada we have a lot of haitians especially in french speaking montreal .wasnt it obama that barred the ebola people.. We take people in ,we learn from our mistakes, some dont. AC a Christmas gesture on my next trip down I am going to bring some wellingtons so when your liming or sitting around at a restaurant or even going to the bank your feet will stay dry


  12. From childhood at church at this time of the year, we would hear this passage from Isaiah 9 read
    For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
    Note the last of the names listed in verse six in this prophecy of Jesus Christ
    Note also in verse 7 that the peace that is promised here shall never end.
    Clearly this verse teaches that Peace Is Plainly Promised

    Hebrews 6:18 says it is “impossible for God to lie.” How then do you explain that He promised peace, yet we do not have it, yet?
    That is because Peace Was Purposefully Postponed
    Isaiah 53:3 reads
    God has chosen to postpone peace on Earth because when the source of peace came he was rejected
    He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

    John 1:10-11 reads
    He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

    In Luke 17:25Jesus predicted that he must first suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.
    God sent His Son, the Lord Jesus, into the world as the Prince of Peace; but the world rejected and crucified Him.

    But look at the difference in the words of Micah 4:3-4, speaking of Jesus when He comes again.
    And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
    4But they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; and none shall make them afraid: for the mouth of the LORD of hosts hath spoken it.
    5For all people will walk every one in the name of his god, and we will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever.
    6In that day, saith the LORD, will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out, and her that I have afflicted;
    7And I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast far off a strong nation: and the LORD shall reign over them in mount Zion from henceforth, even for ever.
    8And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.
    When Jesus comes again, there will certainly be peace. But until then, there will be wars and rumors of wars (see Matthew 24:6).The only true hope for peace for the church, for the nation, and for the individual is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
    How does the promise of future peace help you live in the present IS THE BIG QUESTION
    Peace May Be Personally Possessed

    Peace IS possible now WE CAN HAVE peace in our hearts NOW.
    Romans 5:1 say Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ
    Sin is warfare against God. Mankind declared war against the kingdom of heaven when Adam sinned. But the Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, came to undo what Adam did and to reconcile God and man.
    Colossians 1:20 TEACHES HOW Jesus made peace
    And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they bethings in earth, or things in heaven.
    21And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
    22In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:
    23If ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven

    Phillipians 4 teaches also about the peace of God, which passeth all understanding
    Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
    7And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
    There is no peace apart from the Prince of Peace.
    Our prayer for us all this holiday season is that we might all enjoy the peace with God and the peace of God brought to us and bought for us by the Prince of Peace.
    May we all be blessed with peace from the Prince of Peace. May you be blessed wih peace in our heart, peace in our home, and eternal peace in heaven.
    It is yours in Jesus, the Prince of Peace.


  13. lawson what has Trump said or done in helping to make the world a better place.In the short time Trump has been president america has become more divided . world leaders are dismayed at his style of leadership one that sends a message that america is the big bully of the world, Nothing good has come out of his mouth towards healing and respect for the good of country. If you believe that Trump pandering to the jewish comunity is the right thing to heal old wounds then i got a bucket of sh,it to sell you.
    The right wing christain vanguard support of Trump is predicated on archaic biblical prophesy and the stakes are very high for them wanting to see these prophesy come true whether it be Tump or Ninja Man in the white housing spouting policies which they believe are inheritant to making bible prophesy of end times becoming true the christian right would by all means necessary give their support to those morons


  14. David December 23, 2017 at 2:45 PM #
    Good to see you about Zoe, hope the ticker is turning over ok. All the best to you.

    Thanks David, yes, the ticker is working well, All the best to you as well!


  15. First it was the Mexicans which he could not deny because the sh.it cane flying right out of his uncapped sewer mouth
    Now trying to get some of his foot soldiers to do damage control on his recent mouthings about Haitians and Nigerians is laughable and highly insulting
    Only few morons and imbeciles like lawson and GP would belive that Trump had a damascus moment and said differ
    Cant wait for the time to come to see this turd a ss thrown out of washington and back to selling and thiefing real estate
    The man is the worst immoral president ever. His language speaks volume about his character and disrespect of people
    Cannot belive that any followers of the the teachings of Christ would engage or support Trump whose words language and actions does not line up with Jesus teachings of love towards your fellow man


  16. @ Zoe December 23, 2017 at 11:19 PM
    “The most incredible small piece of land on the face of God’s earth, IS the State of Israel!
    The most hated and vilified people on earth have been the Jewish people. They are also the most brilliant people on earth.

    Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for over 3,000 years, currently IS, the capital of Israel, and ALWAYS will be.”

    And all along we were led by our BU John that Barbadoes after the arrival of the persecuted Quakers became the “most incredible small piece of land on the face of God’s earth”.

    Zoe, you really need to stick to one ‘story’ if you want to be an expert liar.
    Wasn’t Canaan the land promised by a desert god called Yahweh to theformerly ‘enslaved’ people calling themselves Israelites?

    How many indigenous peoples were decimated (by ethnic cleansing and ghettoization) in pursuit of this land grab similar to what was done to the indigenous peoples of the Americas including those in the Caribbean archipelago?

    How can Europeans calling themselves Ashkenazi Jews lay sole claim to those lands ‘inherited’ through the ‘cursed’ HAM?

    What about the still enslaved blacks of the ‘western new world’?
    Weren’t they also taken into captivity and enslaved for 400 years in keeping with Psalm 137

    By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down and wept, When we remembered Zion.
    Upon the willows in the midst of it We hung our harps.

    For there our captors demanded of us songs, And our tormentors mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”…

    How can we sing the LORD’S song In a foreign land?

    If I forget you, O Jerusalem, May my right hand forget her skill.…”

    Aren’t these modern-day slaves still entitled to their piece of the “Promised Land”?

    Is Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream going to be thrown down the rivers of Babylon?

    Was the modern-day Moses a Jewish copycat when he said:

    “Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live – a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

    “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”[

    According to the above the modern Jews have no claim to the ‘Promised Land’ for they continue to refuse to recognize Jesus as their Lord & Saviour whom the formerly enslaved black people in the Americas have embraced with the zeal of a billion camels trekking across the deserts of the horn of Africa.


  17. Dont mind Lawson…Justin and the native Canadians will soon deport him to US and trump will deport him to somewhere else….maybe Haiti…..lol


  18. Barbados is being bounced in to being part of the Middle East mess. This is not our fight. We have more urgent and important fights at home.


  19. Agree Hal! Let the big boys fight it out The cartibbean . land just went through a series of hurricanes and none of them lift a finger to help


  20. @ac
    New Barbadians have an agenda. I have seen it played out in the UK. We must vigorously oppose it. If we wait until it is too late our children and their children will not thank us.


  21. @Lawson, you are always a funny poster and here too re “… If trump became president entertainers […] lemmon and cooper were going to go straight they didnt and your worried about a crowd.”

    But No I am NOT worried about a crowd. I am DEFINITELY worried however that the director of the Armageddon codes has his ID personality under-development so consumed about it!

    When you become PRESIDENT of the USA you should be channeling Freud and refining your Super-Ego. DEFINITELY not be worrying about how far you can piss or affirming the size of your hands.

    So yes I am concerned that this ‘IDomaniac’ still needs to have his ego stroked so much!

    You should be too…Canada is a two or three degree error from the rocket man’s missiles aimed at US.

    @Are-we Mr Sporadic blogger, interesting commentaries above. A bit deep for me. You delve into places I cannot thread, particularly with your lead sentence “This situation is perhaps the most complex one this world has faced since Jesus was delivered to Pontius Pilate.”

    All I can simply say is that D. Trump is a ‘winner’ in every sense of the word. People love to be in the orbit of winners so he has acolytes who will do his every bidding and look past the grave warning signs of pending calamity.

    I can only paint that calamity in current real world terms and will leave the spiritual prognostications to you, BushTea, The Miller et al.

    In those simple terms every winner must also be a loser… The Latin scholars sayest Q.E.D. or loosely translated: “thus it has been demonstrated.”

    And I refer not to the intermittent losses on Travel Bans or other transactional matters, rather the BIG loss which can be precipitated by any number of pending problems (Mueller probe, DPRK folly, an ISIS attack on a Trump labelled property).

    Incidentally, re your political analysis viz “Trump would have been FACING (my emphasis) an impeachment now if somehow the Republicans had not got themselves inextricably involved in the Trump cover up”

    Let’s agree to disagree on that one.

    And re: “The ZOE’s and Georgie Porgies are not reading the ball clearly. We are all pawns in a battle that transcends the understanding of our feeble minds.”

    Is that not also Q.E.D…. with all feeble minds can ANY of us truly read the ball clearly.

    Greetings and seasonal joys to you, Lawson and the numerous wonderful folks who use this site regularly. We press forward with eagerness to scorn the defeats of 2018.

    PS…@Mr BustTea, this is right up your alley so I am surprised I did not see you doing your BBE thing..or did I miss it…

    DOES GOD LEAD US INTO TEMPTATION!

    “Pope Francis has called for the English wording of the Lord’s Prayer to be changed, because it implies God “induces temptation”.

    The prayer asks God to “lead us not into temptation”.

    But the pontiff told Italian broadcasters he believed the wording should be altered to better reflect that it was not God who led humans to sin.

    He [said]: “It is not a good translation because it speaks of a God who induces temptation.”

    He added: “I am the one who falls; it’s not him pushing me into temptation to then see how I have fallen.

    “A father doesn’t do that, a father helps you to get up immediately. It’s Satan who leads us into temptation, that’s his department.”

    Indeed a leader or father should never lead us into temptation or is it that he presents that continued test of our fortitude!


  22. The Haitian govt stood side by side with America in casting their vote even after Trump has threaten to send the Haitian people back to their country still not recovered from a devastating earthquake
    Amazing


  23. ac December 24, 2017 at 12:33 PM #

    Remember what the Clintons did to the Caricom leadership after the Haitian earthquake?


  24. hillary I mean AC so any christian that voted for trump is deplorable??? LOL thats why your ilk got the boot, they have their heads stuck so far up their ass when it comes to what regular people want. Obama caused more of a racial divide than trump has…he could have been my son…probably … that was one thing he was right about.
    Bush and obama escalated trouble in middle east by eliminating the strong men keeping the nutbars in line….thats why the US havent got rid of fruendal
    Obama escalated the trouble in korea by paying off iran …having the NK leader wanting his payday. Great deal that iran thing felt like Sandals deal obviously a bajan must have been involved …oh yeah ag holder
    Obama thought he was dealing with San Franciscans not dictators imagine bringing out a button for a reset …Putin must have been laughing at his dacha. WTF
    Trump has inherited a mess it will take time but it will get straightened out.


  25. @dd P at 12: 08 PM

    Agree with the general drift of your argument.

    Can a father give his children tests to measure their development ? Adam failed his and it is alleged that the second Adam passed his with flying colours. I posed this question to you since part of your original moniker was INRI.


  26. Young people from the Muslim community are revving up their campaign to combat loneliness over the festive period.

    Interesting.


  27. lawson December 24, 2017 at 2:23 PM #

    Scotland s being taken over too. Just go to Glasgow. I believe the Swedes now regret their liberalism – and so they should. Beware of the Trojan horse.


  28. Obama did not have anything to do with the racial divide. Racial division was in existence in USA long before Obama was born.However Obama ascendency to be president brought out massive hate and division fueled by the white supermacist who believed a black man having such power should be taught a lesson. Hence america during Obama Presidency witnessed a modern day lynching of black men gun down in the streets like dogs by white policeman a covert attempt and a dark message designed and well executed by racist policemen to teach blacks a lesson and a demonstration of power by the white supermacist which they knew they could get away with because of having the law on their side
    So do not come here lawson talking sh.it about Obama and racial divide.


  29. RE DOES GOD LEAD US INTO TEMPTATION!
    “Pope Francis has called for the English wording of the Lord’s Prayer to be changed, because it implies God “induces temptation”.
    The prayer asks God to “lead us not into temptation”.
    But the pontiff told Italian broadcasters he believed the wording should be altered to better reflect that it was not God who led humans to sin.

    He [said]: “It is not a good translation because it speaks of a God who induces temptation.”

    Clearly the Pontiff can not read too well…….and does not seem to know the WORD very well.

    First what is called of the Lord’s Prayer is not really the Lord’s Prayer at all. What is recorded in Matthew 6 is the MODEL PRAYER . The Lord’s Prayer is recorded in John 17.

    In the MODEL PRAYER, it DOES NOT ANYWHERE speak of a God who induces temptation.”
    Clearly the “proof texts” that answers the questions as to whether GOD LEAD US INTO TEMPTATION is given in the two texts below.

    James 1
    12Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
    13Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:
    14But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
    15Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
    16Do not err, my beloved brethren.

    1 CORINTHIANS 10:13
    There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.


  30. The white supremacis understood the dynamics of their plot to shame. Obama and weakened his power lie in a race war.
    So what better orchestration than laying out a plan to target black men
    A plan which by the way did what is was supposed to do keep the racist divide and stain Obama Presidency and one which the white supermacist knew Obama had no control because legal the laws were on their side in reference to policemen shootings of citizens in which police defence was that of feeling threatened
    Today these same supremacist are advocates of Trump racist views whith the voices long and hard wanting to make america white again.
    Trump language of sending minorties mostly black to their place of origin is an agenda that Trump wants to fulfill to appease the white supermacist vote
    Never mind many of them are hard workers who worked for little or nothing and also paid taxes
    America is going to pay a high price that of being isolated by many friends because of a demagogue called Donald Trump


  31. AC you are such a moron , obama got in because white people voted for him you idiot and he caused such a divide with his policies that is why his party is out. There is a reason it is called the white house. But there may be a day when we will be in the minority and it may be called Harry;s.


    • @lawson

      Many who post to BU agree that Obama fell short in the expectations of many after he projected such hope to the world that he would have been an agent of change. That said he has not done any worse than his predecessor.


  32. whats the high price they are going to pay??? ,they were always isolationist till they were begged to enter the wars so what high price are they gonna pay…nobody will want to come there lol


  33. I WAS EXPECTING YOU TO COME WITH SOME BS
    YOU CAN NOT HELP IT CAN YOU?

    I HAVE RIGHTLY DIVIDED THE WORD OF TRUTH, NEVERTHELESS
    HOPEFULLY SOMEONE SOMEWHERE WILL LEARN SOMETHING ABOUT WHAT THE WORD SAYS ON THE MATTER .


  34. RE lawson December 24, 2017 at 3:31 PM #
    AC you are such a moron , obama got in because white people voted for him
    LAWSON YOU GOT TO BE CAREFUL WUH YOU SAYING HERE?
    A FEW WEEKS AGO WHEN I SAID THAT I WAS TOLD THAT HE WAS VOTED IN BY ”
    NON RACIST” WHITES AND DAT DE DEMS WERE VOTED OUT BY RACIST WHITES.

    SO YOU GOT TO SAY obama got in because NON RACIST white people voted for him AH LIE?


  35. I speak of the white supermacist who went on a witch hunt to demeane Obama i will bet that none of them voted for Obama including Trump whose hatred for Obama was real and obvious to the point of a wierd imagination of Obama place of birth


  36. lawson are you trying to deny that there are white supremacist in USA all with racist and political agendas
    You telling me whites vited for Obama says nothing. Blacks voted and so were others of ethic race and religion.however the only race to be asking for america to be white again is that group of the white race
    So do not come here trying to twist facts with your shortsighted version of truth


    • What Lawson is saying is that in a dominant White populated USA Obama could NOT have won unless Whites voted for him. It is not anything that should be difficult to understand.


  37. @ Georgie Porgie December 24, 2017 at 2:57 PM

    GP, are you trying to tell the Pontiff what to do with his religion?

    The representative of St. Peter on Earth (yes, the same Peter who disowned your Jesus) and the ‘Christian’ commander-in-chief is right when he says the traditional Lord’s Prayer does imply that your god likes to tempt humans and lead them astray just to have fun when he is bored to death.

    If he (Yahweh) did it with Abraham by encouraging to him commit infanticide and by allowing his only ‘begotten’ son Jesus to be led away into the desert and into the mountains to be wooed and entertained by Satan (so the fable goes) what would you think would befall simple frail naïve creatures like yourself and Zoe?


  38. I understand that whites voted for Obama.however Lawson stating that whites voted for Obama does not in any way refute the fact that the white supremacist were behind demeaning and disrespecting Obama Presidency. There is only one issue of concern which hinges on racism and that is one of influential white supremacist idealogies and political agendas which were sufficient enough to cause more racial divide during Obama presidency
    The truth being that there is sufficient racial divide to place blame where it should be placed and that is right into the hands of the white supermacist and not Obama


    • Whether the election of Obama was an ‘aberration’ or not it was was just a stage in the process of change. The USA is what it is i.e. a country that about 50/60 years ago blacks enjoyed limited freedoms.


  39. “What Lawson is saying is that in a dominant White populated USA Obama could NOT have won unless Whites voted for him.”

    The same way many whites were very much behind the abolition of slavery.

    It if was left up to blacks alone to secure their own freedom, Martin Luther King JR would have been the shoeshine boy to Rhett Butler playing the part of Master Maxwell of the Falconhurst.

    There are many more white people with good moral character than those blacks (like the ones in the Bajan Parliament) who would sell the shackle of their enslaved great-great grand parents for a snack box from KFC or for a plate of diabetes-causing cake from PriceSmart.


  40. All this talk about whites voted for Obama does not at all sway me into a false sense of security. All it does is to reinforce in my mind that whites does what they think is best for them.
    When one look at the economic upheveal that occcured under Bush before Obama was elected
    The white merchant class was fedup and looking for a fresh face and easy way out to repair america moral high ground in the world and who else would foot the bill but Obama a virtual unknown having little experience or being afflicted by the stains and stench of political corruption
    A new kid on the block with no political damage


  41. ‘We’ll Remember This Day’: US Finally ‘Resorts to Openly Blackmailing Allies’

    Commenting on the fallout from Washington’s threats to cut aid to its allies if they voted against the US’s Jerusalem decision at the UN, Russian geopolitical analyst Gevorg Mirzayan outlined why this attempt at blackmail is really a signifier of the decline of US global geopolitical hegemony.

    SNIP

    Washington, according to the analyst, “no longer wants to, or rather cannot, maintain its global dominance through leadership (including soft power, persuasion, the search for compromises with allies). Instead, it has turned to methods of domination, and above all, to political and military coercion. This is not so much an initiative of Trump himself (even if his tough view of world politics undoubtedly contributed to this transformation), as an objective process resulting from the crisis of American leadership —the inability of the US to maintain a unipolar world order and its reluctance to recognize this fact.”

    https://sputniknews.com/analysis/201712231060273006-us-general-assembly-vote-consequences/


  42. BTW what happened to all the millions of whites the second time around when the election was called
    why did they all disappear ?
    some you thinking that whites voting for Obama in the first election sent a signal of whites love of Obama is clearly fooled
    The USA political machinery needed Obama , and for one purpose, Americas image throughout the world was being tarnished because of the global meltdown, No one had the stomach to deal with the corrupt politicians of that era especially any one of them seeking the presidency
    Obama was clearly used as a corrective measure on moral grounds, The world loved and accepted Obama as a man of hope and moral value
    Meanwhile in the USA the politics of racial destruction continued to fester one which all saw and see and one which can be characterized as a lightning rod to sabotage Obama presidency with the now president Donald Trump stoking the fire


  43. @ GreenMonkey December 24, 2017 at 5:50 PM
    “”This is not so much an initiative of Trump himself (even if his tough view of world politics undoubtedly contributed to this transformation), as an objective process resulting from the crisis of American leadership —the inability of the US to maintain a unipolar world order and its reluctance to recognize this fact.””

    The Jerusalem monkey spanner is just another distraction concocted by Trump’s advisers to take the World’s focus away from the real bugbear facing the US.

    North Korea’s rocket man has declared WAR and poor Trump is so afraid that even Neville Chamberlain would be sympathetic to his act of cowardice.

    Now what would it take to appease Mr. Rocketman? $40 billion in foreign money by way of aid would do just fine.

    Meanwhile, Mexico is waiting with bated breath for the first invoice covering the mobilization fee for the construction of that wall of gringo dreams.

    BTW, did North Korea and Mexico vote on the recent UN resolution to make Israel a persona non grata in global entente cordiale?


  44. I cannot understand how some people wont accept the fact that a majority of people vote for who they believe will do the best job by the policies and attributes of the person running with the good outweighing the bad in their minds. For instance obama was eloquent, clean cut family man a lot of white people like that, Marion Barry was a rogue and a druggy who was also voted in by the majority but only one along the race lines that AC is suggesting. I like to believe that most people think for themselves but AC again says that we are mind controlled by the merchant class. I am not sure if that is a barbados thing. So how does a mule faced dyke like kathleen wynne with horrible policies get voted in you may ask , I think good people just figured this guy is probably as good as the next guy.


  45. @David Mr Blogmaster, well said above. Aberration or whatever it has definitively set a precedent away from the White Male model.

    With the ascendancy of Trump (and it’s not as simple as a backlash to Obama) the stage is now set for the first female president.

    Not sure if a Nikki Haley (both female and ethnic) can be the right choice but she certainly has an excellent chance.

    The Dems have a problem in finding just the right mix but they too have some possible female candidates.

    The perfect storm for the Repubs would be a disgraceful exit for Trump coupled with a related slap down for Pence paving the way for Haley in 2020 on the back of the expected continued uptick in the US economy.

    She was absolutely shrewd to go after the UN post….stays in the spotlight and can ride the good news but is away from the home-front sewerage of most of Trump’s awful bombast. If she has the ambition she is the one to watch.

    When you read that punditry in the Broad sheets remember it was on BU first! 🙂


  46. Dribbler is….nancy pelosi ..elizabeth warren….maxime watters and frederika wilson the women you are talking about


  47. After George Bush’s presidency – with the Iraq and Afghanistan debacles, the financial mess-up, and the low esteem with which the USA was held around the world, The USA was in need of a suitable scapegoat to take the blame for the poor state of the union…

    Who better than Obama?

    Shiite man … even Lawson would have voted for the ‘bama

    Somewhat like in Blazing Saddles
    Bushie can just see Lawson voting for Richard Pryor as sheriff….
    …and then being pissed that he turned out to be a boss office hit…
    LOL
    ha ha ha


  48. Lawson…I keep telling you, whites did not do Obama any favors by voting for him, he saved their asses AFTER lying George Bush and his devious, dangerous administration bankrupted the country…..so.get ya facts straight.


  49. Lawson, you never fail to be funny bro…Nancy Pelosi, you say ….yep just the one.

    I think you know that Warren as liberal as she is and Harris along with the ‘light weight’ Gillarbrand are solid options with some ….just some…outside chance at the WH.

    But Haley is right now the best of the lot.

    Anyhow long way away. It’s all about Mia soon. She will finally ascend to her coveted throne.


  50. Greenie
    The only new about this ‘whitemailing’ by the Americans is that the whole world can now see it openly.


  51. Trump’s National Security Speech
    By Paul Craig Roberts

    This is nothing but feel-good talk. Trump is repeating the lies because the lies make him look good. What Trump should be doing is pointing out the meaninglessness of the unemployment rate, because it doesn’t count the unemployed, only those few who looked for a job in the last 4 weeks. He should be pointing out that the stock market is not a sign of a growing economy but a sign of massive money creation by the central banks of the US, EU, UK, and Japan. The massive printing of money has flooded into paper assets, driving up their price and further enriching the One Percent.

    Trump says that one leg of the strategy is to “preserve peace through strength.” What peace is he talking about? In the past two decades Washington has destroyed in whole or part eight countries and overthrown democratic governments in others. Is Trump equating peace with Washington’s wars? No other country has initiated wars and invasions and bombings and aggressive military actions on other countries’ borders. Trump says that America is threatened by enemies and to protect us the military will be enlarged. He said he was overturning the “defense sequester,” something that clearly does not exist.

    My conclusion is that Trump has surrendered to the real rulers of America—the powerful interest groups such as the military/security complex, the Israel Lobby, the environmental polluters, Wall Street and the banks “too big to fail.”

    America is a country in which despite the hopes flyover America had in Trump, an oligarchy rules. The American people, regardless of who they elect, have no voice, no input, no representation.

    https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/12/19/trumps-national-security-speech/


  52. ac December 24, 2017 at 4:17 PM #
    lawson are you trying to deny that there are white supremacist in USA all with racist and political agendas
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    The KKK is the product of the Democrats, a fact of history!!

    Surely they voted for Obama, a Democrat?

    What on earth would have caused them to shift their support to Trump as you suppose?


  53. America is a country in which despite the hopes flyover America had in Trump, an oligarchy rules. The American people, regardless of who they elect, have no voice, no input, no representation.
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    So, same applies for Obama!!


  54. @Bernard, of course “…a father [can] give his children tests to measure their development “. That is the essence of being a good father as far as I perceive that role.

    Thus I would disagree with the perspective that the Holy Father does not lead into tempatation and readily frame it as his continual testing us on whether we will partake of another dangerous ‘fruit of life’.

    Incidentally to what are you referring re ” … since part of your original moniker was INRI.”

    @Lawson, what is the joke this time….the pun on the congresswoman’s last name Gabbard re Trumps grabbing….or her Hawaian heritage as a knock on to Obama’s origins there?

    And @John, why do you continue to disgrace your efforts of historical scholarly research with such absolutely disingenuous BS.

    It is ABSURD to offer your fact of history @10:32PM y’day and conclude “Surely they voted for Obama, a Democrat? What on earth would have caused them to shift their support to Trump as you suppose?”

    You are too bright to be so ignorant so obviously you are INGRUNT; no one with your supposed IQ could offer such an ASININE remark.

    The history of the Dem’s and Repubs is well known to anyone who cares to investigate. There is a reason the Republicans LOVE to remind all and sundry that theirs is the party of Abe Lincoln…the one who took a nation to war because of slavery.

    That was then. So indeed the Democratic party of the time were the true blood racists.

    That changed COMPLETELY during the 60s with Pres Johnson…when he also told all and sundry that his and the Democratic party’s support of the civil rights legislation would cause a lost of southern states (in senate) for generations thereafter….

    He was ABSOLUTELY right: All the racists Dems immediately pledged allegiance to the Republican party at the national level …And have since then with few exceptions….like for Jimmy Carter, himself a southerner.

    Everyone should know this well.

    Thus I am trying to understand if that statement above re KKK voting for Obama was made when you were quite high on tampi or on nuff Mount Gay n eggnog!…because the remarks are fundamentally ridiculous and totally illogical.


  55. dPD;

    Spot on! re. John’s inane comments above. How could someone with the great sense that John has shown in many other posts, follow up Green Monkey’s cogent post above with such brassbowlery? It can only lead one to think that most of our bajan “albino” brothers are generally hopelessly flawed and would seamlessly fit into the racist mindset john exemplifies above.

    Chupseeeeeee!


  56. Re Paul Craig Robert’s statement posted above: “America is a country in which despite the hopes flyover America had in Trump, an oligarchy rules. The American people, regardless of who they elect, have no voice, no input, no representation.”

    John said: “So, same applies for Obama!!
    No arguement from me on that. Videos below contain some swearing:

    The late George Carlin: “The Game is Rigged”
    https://youtu.be/AeRd0EJbkC0

    US West Coast comedian Jimmy Dore was a Democrat who found his hope of casting a vote for Bernie Sanders in the presidential election dashed after the DNC collaborated with the Clinton campaign in fixing the primaries. The fix was in to give the more establishment friendly and favoured candidate, Hillary Clinton, the nomination. In the following video he discusses the corruption in the Democratic Party.
    youtube(DOT)com/watch?v=ueQDlyCR3H0


  57. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-secures-dollar285m-cut-in-un-budget/ar-BBHiW7s?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

    Americans wake up to a $285 million Christmas present from their president this morning!!

    “The inefficiency and overspending of the United Nations are well known,” Haley said. “We will no longer let the generosity of the American people be taken advantage of or remain unchecked. This historic reduction in spending – in addition to many other moves toward a more efficient and accountable UN – is a big step in the right direction.”


  58. “The KKK is the product of the Democrats, a fact of history!!”

    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Okay, point taken……. but perhaps for reasons of personal aggrandizement, you are purposely forgetting that the Republican Party also mingled in racism as well.

    Since you seem to be “schooled” in American politics, I’m sure you recall the “Southern Strategy,” which was developed by the Republicans to shift its national base to the “Deep South” (Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina) by appealing to conservative whites (especially white southerners) disaffected with the Democratic Party by its strong embrace of civil rights laws in the 1960s and its racially egalitarian policies.

    And I’m sure you know of Richard Nixon.

    There are documented cases that prove Donald Trump is a racist……….. but you will want to convince us he has changed………… so what can’t the Democratic Party change as well.


  59. It is ABSURD to offer your fact of history @10:32PM y’day and conclude “Surely they voted for Obama, a Democrat? What on earth would have caused them to shift their support to Trump as you suppose?”
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Now if you thought about it a bit you would realise that the Democrats, after screwing the blacks for ages throughout history now, in words at least, openly espouse their cause and cast off their allies, the “white supremacists”!!!!!

    What would you do if you were any of the few remaining self respecting “white supremacists”?

    Change allegiance of course!!

    That’s why they stopped voting Democrat!!!

    The Democrats leff dem out!!

    So the Democrats former allies drop dem like hot potatos … or is it potatoes and look to the other alternative!!

    Why would the Democrats drop dem?

    Because numerically they are an extremely tiny minority and can’t help the Democrats attain power … as Rush Limbaugh opines, you can’t fit all the “white supremacists” in America into a phone booth!!

    How do you hear the Democrats talk about the blacks?

    As numbers, as a demographic that will propel them to power!!

    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/12/despite-the-obstacles-black-voters-make-a-statement-in-alabama/548237/


  60. Trump agrees … the game is rigged!!!

    He isn’t no angel neither!!!

    But if the “owners” wanted Hilary Clinton to be president and went so far as to rig things so Bernie would lose and then she turned around and lost, what does that say about Trump?

    Did Trump outwit the owners?

    Is Trump owned by the Hilary Clinton owners?

    Is he owned?

    Was it all a charade?

    I think it was the pareto principle at work.

    Like here in Barbados!!

    40 % are Democrats, 40% are Republicans and 20% decide the outcome!!

    I agree, it is a minority who determine the outcome of an election!!

    Maybe the owners are a sizeable portion of the 20%.

    … or maybe, there are two owners … one owns the Dems and the other the Republicans.


  61. Okay, point taken……. but perhaps for reasons of personal aggrandizement, you are purposely forgetting that the Republican Party also mingled in racism as well.
    ++++++++++++++++++

    I am getting some sport off the blind loyalty people direct at the Democrats and Obama!!

    Of course there are flaws in the Republican party.

    Both are made up of humans.

    But from what I see, some of the flaws in the Republican party when they are brought to light are addressed, the Democrats tend to ignore all of theirs until it is no longer possible to ignore the ones that come to light before trying any corrective action!!


  62. “I am getting some sport off the blind loyalty people direct at the Democrats and Obama!!”
    +++++++++++++++

    I DO NOT have “blind loyalty” for “the Democrats and Obama,” firstly because I am not an American and I do not have any desire of visiting there either………… secondly, IDON’T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT American politics.

    I just decided to give a DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE other than the “one dimensional” opinion you keep presenting, as gospel, to this forum.

    However, I am not “getting some sport,” but I am AMAZED at the blind loyalty people direct at the Republicans and Donald Trump. Some of you treat and speak of Donald Trump (a pathological liar) as though he is a god. But your excuse will be………… “He is only human and would have flaws.”

    And I am also amazed, as was mentioned by another contributor, why you keep INTRODUCING Trump into all the articles posted top this forum for “discussion,” thereby CHANGING the FOCUS on what YOU WANT TO DISCUSS, which ALWAYS seems to be Trump or the Quakers.

    What is your obsession with American politics that you are so driven to FORCE it on us?

    What you could do is post a contribution on Trump or the Quakers for comments, rather than hijack the posts as you had “skillfully” succeeded in doing to the PWC post.


  63. dribbler not joking she was an army vet, seems likable and competant, i am not a vegetarian or from her background but looking at your other she is far superior


  64. “New US Security Policy Raises Difficult Questions For The Caribbean

    Published:Sunday | December 24, 2017 | 10:56 AM
    PhotoVideo

    File
    LONDON, CMC – A consultant with the London-based Caribbean Council says the Trump administration’s new United States security policy raises difficult questions for the Caribbean.

    Writing under the syndicated column, “The View from Europe”, David Jessop says that, by law, every US President must publish a national security strategy.

    The objective, he says, is to provide the highest-level guidance on the responses required by the country’s military, diplomatic, and executive branches to real or perceived threats.

    Last Tuesday, following a speech by Trump outlining his approach to national security, Jessop noted that the White House released a 53-three-page document setting out how his administration intends putting “America First” in the world.

    Jessop says the strategy paper paints a bleak picture, seeing all states as being in a” relentless competition for power and influence”.

    The US, the strategy argues, according to Jessop, has been “weak and must now become engaged in a determined struggle to restore the unipolarity it achieved when it won the Cold War”.

    The strategy “all but rejects interdependence and multilateralism, suggesting that what happens in the world today is a zero-sum game in which only by advancing US principles will prosperity spread around the globe,” according to Jessop.

    He noted that the document has some broad themes: ‘America First’ will be the ‘foundation of US leadership in the world through outcomes, not ideology’, a policy described as ‘principled realism’; China and Russia want to ‘shape a world antithetical to our interests and values’, and are perceived to be challenging US power, influence and interests; unless they and others adapt their thinking, the US ‘will compete with all tools of national power’ to ensure ‘that the regions of the world are not dominated by one power’”.

    Whether one accepts the underlying philosophy or the interpretation of history or not, Jessop says that the document has “potentially profound implications for any nation or government that sees the world differently.

    “Although it contains some positive language, for instance on organised crime, corrupt officials, terrorism, and engaging the private sector in development, it suggests that a divide is likely to emerge between the US and the Caribbean if Washington decides to deploy its world view in a regional context,” he writes.

    “Any reading of the whole document suggests numerous points of divergence,” he adds. “The most obvious relates to China, which over the last decade has become for almost all nations in the region an important investor, trade partner, and advocate of issues of vital importance, most notably climate change.”

    Jessop says the section of the new US strategy paper on the Western Hemisphere “could not be clearer”.

    That section says “competitors have found operating space in the hemisphere. China seeks to pull the region into its orbit through state-led investments and loans”.

    The document criticises both Cuba and Venezuela, and Russia and China’s relationship with both, noting that the US “will isolate governments that refuse to act as responsible partners in advancing hemispheric peace and prosperity”.

    The section, according to Jessop, indicates that, together with Canada, the US will deliver in the Western hemisphere a policy that “limits the malign influence of non-hemispheric forces,” while, as in the past, working to increase economic opportunities for all, improving governance, and reducing the power of criminal organisations.

    “Whether Canada sees the region in this way – what this means for example for Grenada’s reported request to China’s Development Bank to help draft a national development strategy; how US policy will in future relate to the Caribbean’s special relationship with Cuba, enshrined in the recent declaration at a CARICOM-Cuba summit in Antigua; or how it might relate to the possible rescue of Venezuela’s mismanaged oil sector by Russia Rosneft – are just some examples of the practical issues the region is going to have to reconcile in its dialogue with Washington,” Jessop writes.

    “More importantly still, the region is going to have to take a position on what the document totally fails to mention: the existential issue of climate change,” he adds. “Not only does the strategy paper fail to recognise global warming, vulnerability, or smallness, it suggests that US interests in future, in relation to natural disasters, will solely relate to building resilience at a domestic level while for others placing emphasis on the export of fossil fuels and renewable technology.”

    Elsewhere, Jessop says the document introduces new conditionalities.

    “When it comes to future US development assistance this ‘must support America’s national interests’, contains potentially contentious language in its qualified support for multilateral institutions, and more generally suggests that the US will respond negatively to those nations that do not support its foreign policy,” he says.

    For the Caribbean, this will likely pose a conundrum, Jessop says.

    “Smallness, the importance of the US and a trade and investment partner, its physical location, its good relations with neighbours and others that the US now sees as an unwelcome influence, and CARICOM’s renewed drive for a rapid multilateral response to climate change, all suggest that future relations with Washington may become difficult.What now seems to be on offer is far from the approach taken by the Obama administration foreign policy, which had healed many hemispheric rifts,” he adds.

    “If followed through on, the Trump doctrine will be divisive and significantly less in the interests of the region and its desire for a joined up global approach to its future development.”


  65. Lawson…trump is already speaking for Canada without their consent and obviously without their knowledge, putin will be speaking for yall next..lol

    Learn to speak russian ya hear.

    The US is obviously sinking into dictatorship and I doubt the rest of the world will tolerate such idiocy….handcuffs for trump and his idiot supporters…..as soon as possible.


  66. I agree with WW bajans will have to learn english and quit voting with the chinese if they want to fit into the new western hemispheric policy


  67. WW&C;

    Thanks for reference to David Jessop’s article above. It is of spot-on relevance to this blog and should make commenters revert to discussing the likely consequences of the Jerusalem UN vote by our individual countries. Were our policy makers unaware of the crazy stances of the Trump antichrist in almost every matter and that his underlying policy is to disrupt and destroy and then build back America (and whichever other country except Russia that he thinks merits such treatment) in a way that leads to a regressive America of the 18th century while doing everything to annul America’s recent progressive policies and therefore forged their vote on the wrong America. Or did they assess that Trump’s backward policies will not prevail in the short or long run and revert to a more modern democratic type policy in the near future? or did they think that China would be a better big brother for us?

    It is possible that our decision makers misread the tea leaves but they’ve had more than a year to assess Trump’s iconoclastic bent and the varying successes it has achieved so far. What became of our guiding principle of Friends of all and satellites of none. Those sentiments were not supported by this vote.

    We have been seriously let down by our Government in this matter. An abstention was the only sensible choice at this time if the matter was seriously thought out. Check out how Trinidad and St Lucia voted. They understand exactly what their geopolitic place is. The Tweaking of the nose of the Elephant just outside the room was reasonable and even perhaps required policy in Owen’s time. Doing the same now in the state of our absolutely parlous economic dependancy of these times is par for the thought processes of this Government. I wonder if it was not a Freundal ordered stance.


  68. …. and the Trump policies will not take a sharp U-turn if Trump gets impeached soon. The racist and imperial underbelly of America has already been revealed by Trump. They are not going back to recent policies.


  69. abstention was the only course of action but they coudnt help themselves this self sense of importance as I said before when you get a paddling you have no-one else to blame but yourselves. Amazing a banana seller from guatamala seems to have a better sense of whats going on in the states, caricom has sided with belize on a land dispute which way do you think the US will lean lol


  70. Are We There…with or without the orange idiot the plan is to roll back the US and by extension, the rest of the world to at least the 1950s….

    .,….this is not the time to be a balless wonder and neutered eunuch like Lawson……

    ……ya have to stand up to terrorists and bullies with an agenda to reenslave descendants of slaves and others.


  71. HOME » POLITICS
    Robert Mueller took game changing decision, Trump is finished
    Harriet Freeman POSTED ON DECEMBER 24, 2017

    The FBI is probing a defunct bank in Cyprus that had been used by affluent Russians and has been accused by the U.S of money laundering, The Guardian reported on Sunday.

    U.S. investigators and the Treasury Department reportedly requested information about FBME Bank from the Central Bank of Cyprus in November.

    One source told the publication that the request was tied to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort. The source also said the investigation was tied to money that had flowed from Russia to the U.S. through banks in Cyprus.

    Bloomberg reported last month that authorities in Cyprus provided Mueller’s team with documents detailing the financial activities of Manafort and his business associate Richard Gates just days before they were indicted last fall.

    The indictment against Manafort and Gates claims the pair had funneled over $75 million through foreign bank accounts in Cyprus and other countries.

    Manafort and Gates had at least 15 accounts with Cypriot banks, according to Bloomberg.

    Manafort was charged with conspiracy against the United States, tax fraud and money laundering as a part of Mueller’s probe into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russian election meddling in October.

    The Hill has reached out to the Treasury Department for comment. The special counsel’s office declined to comment.

    FBME denied being involved in money laundering in a statement on Saturday.

    FBME has not engaged in money-laundering and was never accused of such until the FinCEN allegations. The Bank has acted in compliance with all the EU and Cyprus Anti-Money Laundering directives; a fact corroborated by multiple third-party auditors,” the bank said”


  72. Harriet freeman the botanist or harriet freeman the bullshit artist? What a putz you and your canadian boyfriend are… you think you can swim with the crocodiles and come out on top lol. Listen to you and barbadians will be selling kidneys to survive. May not work though even melnyk went north for his new parts.


  73. So Melnyk got in new body parts…lol

    Israelis got a good market going on that, the fake jews.

    Guess what eats crocodiles.


  74. Look trumpturds….

    “Instead of marching & begging for the city to remove Confederate statues from city parks, some Black men in Memphis purchased the parks that had statues of Jefferson Davis & Nathan Bedford Forrest (founder of the KKK). Then THEY had the statues removed from THEIR property #Salute”


  75. Lest yall forget with ya short memories.

    Lest we forget.

    “On this day in 1972, the Tuskegee syphilis experiment was terminated.

    Today we remember the 623 African-American men who took part in “The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male”.

    For 40 years – 1932 to 1972 – the impoverished and poorly educated men were never told they had syphilis and were never treated for it, even when penicillin became a standard cure in 1947. They were simply told they had ‘bad blood’.

    For participating in the study, the men received free rides to and from the clinic at Tuskegee University, Alabama. There they were given hot meals and free medical treatment for minor ailments. Any treatments they thought they were also getting for their ‘bad blood’ were actually placebos, aspirin or mineral supplements.

    When the study ended in 1972 following a public outcry, only 74 of the original participants were still alive. Twenty-eight men had died of the disease and a further hundred or so of related complications. Forty wives had been infected and 19 children had been born with congenital syphilis.

    In the summer of 1973, a class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of the study participants and their families. In 1974, a $9 million out-of-court settlement was reached. As part of the settlement, the U.S. government promised to give lifetime medical benefits and burial services to all living participants.

    In 1975, wives, widows and offspring were added to the program. In 1995, the program was expanded to include health as well as medical benefits. Ernest Hendon, who died in 2004 at 96 was the last living survivor. The last widow receiving THBP benefits died in January 2009. There are 15 offspring currently receiving medical and health benefits.

    Ernest Hendon, who died in 2004 at 96, was the last living survivor of the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study.

    Source:

    http://www.reunionblackfamily.com/apps/blog/show/42691960-many-circumstances-attempt-to-destroy-african-people-both-on-the-continent-and-in-the-diaspora-one-is-the-infamous-tuskegee-experiment-1932-1972-


  76. You got a nerve to ask me that though…ya fake jews steal human body parts and that dont even faze you…ya criminal.


  77. @Are-we, I share your concerns at 9:51 AM re the mis-direction of current US policy but the analysis by yourself and others (Lawson et al) which suggests that the Jerusalem gambit will be a painful harsh experience for all those who bucked the US is flawed in my view…based on the real dynamics at play.

    I suggest that another article posted here by @Sargeant (NYT: Stoking Fears, Trump Defied Bureaucracy to Advance Immigration Agenda) informs the forward motion on this ‘Security Strategy’ quite well.

    Using a quote from that article, to say: “Like many of his initiatives, his effort to change American immigration policy has been executed through a disorderly and dysfunctional process that sought from the start to defy the bureaucracy charged with enforcing it, …”

    Admittedly they have learned and improved their ineptitude but yet they are bucking reality.

    For example, the key nativist aide to Trump, Stephen Miller ” cited statistics from the restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies that indicated that resettling refugees in the United States was far costlier than helping them in their own region” and when he was formally advised with a 55 page study “… that found refugees to be a net benefit to the economy” he simply dismissed that and ordered that public statements on the matter reflect “a three-page list of all the federal assistance programs that refugees used”.

    That is John style scholarship at the highest levels, so not unlike our brilliant blogger the Trump admin is shooting from the hip and are adopting stances that have NOTHING to do with Republican orthodoxy….they CANNOT be sustained because many of the positions are clearly impractical and wrong, and actually quite counter productive for the US.

    Barbados and the other 127 other nations would do well to continue to buck these cowboys.

    And let us also record that there are other very crucial matters they will use to placate that US anger… note for example that the latest round of DPRK sanctions was unanimously approved at the Security Council!

    Note further that it has gone totally unnoticed that the same US with no push-back from anyone except Russia approved the sale of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine.

    This is a MAJOR action. In fact the Obama admin had deliberately avoided that same action for the obvious reasons of possible imminent escalation…another war conflagration spot!

    All that to say, that we are being too focused on Jerusalem which is one piece in a very complex geopolitical puzzle…Haley is surely cracking her whip but I am confident that our diplomats know how to pad-up in order to absorb a lash and not shed any tears.


  78. At the time of settlement of Barbados in 1626/7, Jews had been banished from England for 336/7 years, (1290 AD).

    The Reformation put the Bible at the disposal of most people and saw the birth of many Non-Conformist sects based on the various interpretations of different people.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resettlement_of_the_Jews_in_England

    Puritans more and more pushed for freedom of religion.

    “During the years 1655-56 the question of the return of Jews to England was fought in a pamphlet war. Conservative opponents including William Prynne opposed the return while the Quaker Margaret Fell was in favour. Christian supporters believed the conversion of Jews was a sign of the Last Days and the readmission to England was a step towards that goal.[40]”

    Jews were officially readmitted to England in 1655/6 by Cromwell, a Puritan.

    http://www.olivercromwell.org/jews.htm

    From earliest times, Barbadians, first Puritans, then Quakers, promoted the return of Jews to England based on religious beliefs.

    https://books.google.com/books?id=BeMFBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA115&lpg=PA115&dq=puritans+jews+1290&source=bl&ots=cKgFqGdlV2&sig=B6qe1pWqQy1yFYJnZ9OJJ9Y36LY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi5qdmm86bYAhWHZiYKHVizBMkQ6AEISzAG#v=onepage&q=puritans%20jews%201290&f=false

    Barbados, as I have pointed out already, was the result of the Bible.

    The persecution as more and more people read It caused Puritans to flee England for first America and then Barbados.

    So Barbados has “been there done that”.

    The understanding of the Bible’s position on the Jews was there from the beginning.

    Barbados and America are joined at the hip in this regard.

    Both exist because of the Word of God.

    There really can’t be much excuse for what happened at the UN as ignorance cannot be pleaded by supposedly highly educated and intelligent leaders of Barbados who routinely claim Barbados is a “Christian” society as a badge of honour.

    The verse Zoe quotes from Zechariah 12 2-3 must be a cause for concern.


  79. How are England, Barbados, America and one of the Nations which moved or seconded the UN Resolution linked through the Quakers?

    Hint, 1657/8 after the Jews were readmitted to England!!


  80. JOHN
    RE The verse Zoe quotes from Zechariah 12 2-3 must be a cause for concern.

    GET 9 OF 9 AND BUSTEA WITH THEIR “SPIRIT” TO INTERPRET IT FOR YOU

    LET THEM TELL YOU IF IT HAS HAPPENED ALREADY OR WHEN IT WILL HAPPEN AND ASK THEM ABOUT THE LAW OF DOUBLE MENTION


  81. dpD @ 9:58 am

    I concur with 90% of your response above but I cannot do so with part of the sentence with which you started in defining your response. i.e.

    “@Are-we, I share your concerns at 9:51 AM re the mis-direction of current US policy but the analysis by yourself and others (Lawson et al) which suggests that the Jerusalem gambit will be a painful harsh experience for all those who bucked the US is flawed in my view…based on the real dynamics at play.”

    I am not talking about ALL of the countries which bucked the US, just SOME. There were only 5 or so that might be of relevance to such a concern. These are the Caribbean Countries of Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana and St Vincent. Most of the other countries which bucked the US (including those which abstained or were absent) have very little to fear re. repercussions from the tantrums by Trump or even the UN ambassador, Nicki Haley, because of attributes of size, countervailing geostrategic or other power or historical connections with powerful countries which should keep the American Idiot-savant at bay especially taking your point that American internal power relationships from the People and the Judiciary might make his statements re. targeted repercussions for the Anti-American vote somewhat moot.

    The Congressional Republicans have shown a strange willingness to accede to practically all of Trump’s often ridiculous demands. One is not certain, Given Gorsuch’s antecedents in legal judgements and his faint feedback to some of Trump’s statements, if several of Trump’s policies might not yet come to light. You might also be aware of Trump’s excessively vindictive streak as well as his cowardice that might well lead to the less powerful of his supposed adversaries being taken advantage of while he avoids taking any substantive actions against the powerful ones. The Republican congressional leadership has shown that they will let him get away with almost everything he does. Their votes say so. Trump has gotten away with all his actions at self aggrandisement from his position that the Republicans have the power to assuage. If the Republicans had put their feet down about Trump’s breaking of the emoluments clause; If they had pushed back at his hiding his Income tax returns; etc. etc., the impeachment might have already started.

    Even among the Caribbean states that have voted against the US, Barbados stands as the most vulnerable at this time by virtue of the plumetting of our economic essentials and the burgeoning reliance that we might have for US support. Just think how easy it would be for Trump and Haley to have Official warnings put out that could significantly affect our fragile Tourism and Off shore Financial and other Economic underpinnings as compared with the likely effect on the other Caribbean signatories if similar actions were taken.

    Trump is a bully and bullies are known for attacking the powerless. Our power is diminishing by the day at this time. We ignore this at our peril. Our vote was not strategic unless there are other overarching factors at this time that would impel Trinidad and Jamaica to abstain and a few others to be absent from the vote.

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