The Geneva Conventions have died. We are entering a new era where the vaunted “rule of law,” long peddled as the unassailable mantra of the West, is rapidly being considered a quaint set of guidelines from a bygone era.

Of course, the Geneva Conventions were long abandoned decades ago. Dousing children in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos with napalm, carpet bombing entire villages, and spraying Agent Orange on pristine rainforests did away with them early on. Successive campaigns of invasion, juntas and death squads, targeted assassinations and drone wars, from Honduras to Congo to Iraq, Libya, Somalia and beyond, demonstrated how toothless these rules actually were. But there was always the pretense of caring about them. Those days are no more.

After a year and a half+ of Western supported and funded genocide, the crumbling facade of “Human Rights” has collapsed into dust. In short, no one in the Global South believes the West anymore when they spout platitudes regaling their record of morality or ethics.

The Trump regime is now blatantly attacking and deporting anyone who is not a natural born citizen for protesting this crime. Not to be outdone by Netanyahu, Trump has ramped up his own genocidal rhetoric. But there is no hiding the fact that it was Biden who led us to this point. All Western leaders have played their part too. Those on the margins of Western hegemony know this very well, even if the denizens of the West remain in denial. They will never trust us again. Nor should they.

Each new day, a new horror is revealed. And not only by the victims or what is left of the journalists on the ground. This carnage is boasted about by the perpetrators themselves, through live feeds and TikTok reels. And why shouldn’t they? Their confidence in impunity has been well tested. There is no sign in the foreseeable future that this reality will change.

This is the last chapter of this bloody and needless dive into depravity. In these pages, we will likely see even more cruelty and more horrors we cannot begin to fathom. But when it is finally closed, we would be foolish to breath a sigh of relief. The moral price we have all paid for this will be immeasurable.

And the powerful have proven something far more terrifying to themselves. They have shown the world what they can get away with. Anyone they deem disposable can be dealt with in a similar fashion with little to no outcry from those who feel indifferent. If there is anything we can glean from this hideous orgy of death is that in a world where the folly of billionaires and fascists is paramount, we are all Palestinians.

Kenn Orphan, April 2025