Marco Rubio – Asia Pacific Report https://asiapacificreport.nz Independent Asia Pacific news and analysis Tue, 17 Feb 2026 09:35:11 +0000 en-US hourly 1 Caitlin Johnstone: More shockingly honest confessions from the Empire managers https://asiapacificreport.nz/2026/02/17/caitlin-johnstone-more-shockingly-honest-confessions-from-the-empire-managers/ Tue, 17 Feb 2026 09:35:11 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=123846 COMMENTARY: By Caitlin Johnstone

US Empire managers have been making some surprisingly honest admissions in recent days, with Senator Lindsey Graham saying the wars of the future are being planned in Israel and Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling for a return to old-school Western colonialism.

During a Monday press conference in Tel Aviv after a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Graham said that “I’ve been coming here every two weeks whether I need to or not.”

Why is a South Carolina senator traveling to Israel every two weeks, rain or shine? The bloodthirsty warmonger answers this question in short order.

“The wars of the future are being planned here in Israel,” Graham said. “Because if you’re not one step ahead of the enemy, you suffer. The most clever, creative military forces on the planet are here in Israel.”

Graham salivated about the possibility of a US war with Iran, acknowledging that such a war could absolutely result in American troops in the region being struck by Iranian missiles but saying the US should go to war anyway.

“Could our soldiers be hit in the region? Absolutely, they could. Can Iran respond if we have an all-out attack? Absolutely, they can,” Graham said, arguing that “the risk associated with that is far less than the risk associated with blinking and pulling the plug and not helping the people as you promised.”

During a speech at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the mask all the way off in an unsettling rant about the need to return to the good old days when Western powers dominated the Global South without pretence or apology.

“For five centuries, before the end of the Second World War, the West had been expanding — its missionaries, its pilgrims, its soldiers, its explorers pouring out from its shores to cross oceans, settle new continents, build vast empires extending out across the globe,” Rubio said.

“But in 1945, for the first time since the age of Columbus, it was contracting. Europe was in ruins. Half of it lived behind an Iron Curtain and the rest looked like it would soon follow. The great Western empires had entered into terminal decline, accelerated by godless communist revolutions and by anti-colonial uprisings that would transform the world and drape the red hammer and sickle across vast swaths of the map in the years to come.”

Rubio, a notoriously anti-communist gusano, is here admitting that socialism played a leading role in pushing back against the abusive colonialism and empire-building of the Western world in recent decades. A normal person would take this as a strong argument in favour of socialism, but Rubio says it like it’s a bad thing.

Rubio urged Europeans to join their white Christian brethren in the United States in re-conquering the brown-skinned communists and heathens who have been insisting upon their own sovereignty and the advancement of their own interests:

“Under President Trump, the United States of America will once again take on the task of renewal and restoration, driven by a vision of a future as proud, as sovereign, and as vital as our civilization’s past.

“And while we are prepared, if necessary, to do this alone, it is our preference and it is our hope to do this together with you, our friends here in Europe.

“For the United States and Europe, we belong together. America was founded 250 years ago, but the roots began here on this continent long before. The man who settled and built the nation of my birth arrived on our shores carrying the memories and the traditions and the Christian faith of their ancestors as a sacred inheritance, an unbreakable link between the old world and the new.

“We are part of one civilisation — Western civilisation. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilisation to which we have fallen heir.”


It takes a special kind of psychopath to look back with fondness upon five centuries of unchecked Western colonialism and imperialism and then advocate a return to those horrific days. Mass genocides across entire continents. The African slave trade. The violent subjugation and enslavement of entire populations.

That is what Rubio is looking back on and sighing with nostalgia.

And this is of course to say nothing of the savagery his beloved “Western civilisation” is perpetrating in the present day. This is the civilisation of the Gaza holocaust. The civilisation that cannot exist without constant war, exploitation and extraction. The civilisation that is presently strangling Cuba to death and preparing for war with Iran. The civilisation that still to this day violently subjugates and robs the Global South. The civilisation of ecocide. The civilisation of Epstein.

Western civilisation is the most depraved and abusive civilisation that has ever existed. It doesn’t need a return to its prime, it needs to be stopped in its tracks and made healthy. This is obvious from a glance at the deranged empire managers this civilisation has been elevating to positions of leadership.

Caitlin Johnstone is an Australian independent journalist and poet. Her articles include The UN Torture Report On Assange Is An Indictment Of Our Entire Society. She publishes a website and Caitlin’s Newsletter. This article is republished with permission.

]]> US rejects Hamas, UNRWA roles in Gaza as Israeli aid siege persists https://asiapacificreport.nz/2025/10/25/us-rejects-hamas-unrwa-roles-in-gaza-as-israeli-aid-siege-persists/ Sat, 25 Oct 2025 10:51:55 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=120254 Pacific Media Watch

United States top diplomat Marco Rubio says the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) “is not going to play any role” in aid delivery in Gaza, reports Al Jazeera.

He also rejected the possibility of Hamas being involved in any future governance of the besieged enclave.

Speaking during a news conference while on a visit to Israel yesterday, the US Secretary of State claimed UNRWA had become “a subsidiary of Hamas”, echoing an Israeli government line that has been discredited by the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

In response, UNRWA insisted that its presence “remains vital to meeting urgent humanitarian needs” across the bombarded and starved enclave, where a deadly Israeli offensive has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians in two years.

In a statement posted on X, the agency also highlighted that the ICJ had recognised that “no organisation can replace the UNRWA’s role in supporting the people of Gaza”.

Farhan Haq, the deputy spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, also dismissed Rubio’s characterisation.

“You’ve already heard us talk about how UNRWA is not linked to Hamas,” he told reporters at the UN. “UNRWA is the backbone of our humanitarian operations in Gaza.”

Israel banned the agency from operating after accusing some of its staff of taking part in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack without providing evidence.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh said the proclamation by Rubio that UNRWA was a Hamas “subsidiary” was “quite shocking” and “devastating” for UNRWA and all who were involved in Gaza.

UNRWA exonerated by ICJ
UNRWA was not only exonerated by the ICJ and two separate commissions of inquiry, but also had the largest, most extensive aid mechanism in Gaza, Odeh said.

“It has thousands of employees, it has the data to distribute aid to Palestinians with dignity and in an orderly fashion,” she said.

“Nobody has that kind of infrastructure and history in Gaza.”

Despite a US-mediated ceasefire that took effect earlier this month, Israel has continued launching attacks across Gaza. At least two people were killed in shelling east of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza yesterday, a source at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital told Al Jazeera Arabic.

Israel has also kept the Rafah crossing near Egypt sealed, blocking large-scale aid deliveries that were stipulated in the truce agreement.

In his remarks on Friday, Rubio voiced hope of soon putting together an international security force to police the ceasefire in Gaza and said Israel, which opposes including Turkiye, could veto participants.

In Suva, The Fiji Times reports that Israel says Fiji’s “neutral and highly skilled military” could play a valuable role in future peacekeeping efforts once negotiations on Gaza’s next phase were complete.

The indication came as Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel said discussions between Israel, the United States and Arab nations would determine the structure and participants of any peacekeeping arrangement.

“I have to say that we do trust the Fijian forces,” Haskel said during a joint press conference with Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka before she left for her controversial visit to New Zealand.

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