The Long, Lucrative, and Bloody Road to World War III
By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | May 3, 2022
Well, this war in Ukraine will last “months and years.” At least, that is what the leaders of the D.C. foreign policy blob, the media, President Joe Biden’s men, Pentagon and NATO leadership have decided. Their plan is to pour oil on the flames and keep the fire raging. Also, Americans are going to have to cough up the dough for another massive aid package, with $20 billion worth of weapons to keep the blood flowing. In total, this next package will cost the taxpayer $33 billion. With Biden’s proposed $813 billion “defense” budget for 2023, the U.S. is spending more on the military and war now than ever before in the country’s history.
Now that we have our very own Ministry of Truth, it would appear any national debate over these polices, indeed if such a debate is ever allowed to take place, will likely have to be moderated by cockroaches and Keith Richards.
NATO is set to expand again, bringing in Finland and Sweden. This will extend the alliance’s border with Russia by greater than 800 miles and further stoke nuclear tensions, bringing the current brinksmanship to a whole new level. Moscow plans to respond including by increasing air and naval forces in the Baltic Sea and reinforcing its Kaliningrad exclave, which lies between NATO members Poland and Lithuania, with additional nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles. Until 2004, it was unthinkable that NATO would ever expand to Russia’s borders until that actually happened. Like most of our issues with Russia, this is all Bill Clinton and George W. Bush’s fault.
Even as Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and other leaders in Moscow repeatedly warn of nuclear conflict and World War III, even directly comparing the current situation to the Cuban Missile Crisis, senior Pentagon officials say they are not concerned.
Nor do our all-knowing rulers appear concerned with the fact that they have “almost zero” ability to keep track of the myriad sophisticated weapons systems they are sending to Ukraine. CNN quoted briefed sources saying intelligence shows American arms are falling into a “big black hole.” They say it’s worth it.
Nor do they seem to be concerned with the Russians’ warnings regarding how the West’s weapons flood in Ukraine threatens to expand the war into NATO territory and destabilize Europe.
UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss demands the West must “double down” on arms shipments, insisting particularly on “heavy weapons, tanks, airplanes—digging deep into our inventories, ramping up production. We need to do all of this.”
Our top diplomat Antony Blinken says the plan is regime change in Moscow, much like his boss did in March with his Polish “gaffe.” Ironically, the $47 billion in weapons and other U.S. aid pledged to Ukraine these last two months will soon surpass the State Department’s entire budget. Eat your heart out, Netanyahu!
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, former Raytheon board member, says the goal is to see Russia “weakened” to the point where it lacks even the capability to defend itself just outside its borders. As Pat Buchanan notes, this policy, whether its intended to or not, pressures the Kremlin to more seriously consider pulling its nuclear trigger.
“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin said with a clear eye toward increasing Russian casualties and the long term destruction of Moscow’s conventional power.
Perhaps, Austin wants to cripple Russia so severely that his Pentagon can fight a war with China, the “most consequential strategic competitor and the pacing challenge for the Department,” without having to worry so much about Moscow—deemed a second tier “acute” threat, albeit one armed with roughly 6,000 nukes—getting involved.
Austin’s Raytheon pals are making a killing on this proxy war as well as the ancillary effects such as European NATO states, at long last, increasing their military spending.
As Ron Paul has written,
One group of special interests profiting massively on the war is the US military-industrial complex. Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes recently told a meeting of shareholders that, “Everything that’s being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DOD or from our NATO allies, and that’s all great news. Eventually we’ll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business.”
He wasn’t lying. Raytheon, along with Lockheed Martin and countless other weapons manufacturers are enjoying a windfall they have not seen in years. The U.S. has committed more than three billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine. They call it aid, but it is actually corporate welfare: Washington sending billions to arms manufacturers for weapons sent overseas.
By many accounts these shipments of weapons like the Javelin anti-tank missile (jointly manufactured by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin) are getting blown up as soon as they arrive in Ukraine. This doesn’t bother Raytheon at all. The more weapons blown up by Russia in Ukraine, the more new orders come from the Pentagon.
Former Warsaw Pact countries now members of NATO are in on the scam as well. They’ve discovered how to dispose of their 30-year-old Soviet-made weapons and receive modern replacements from the U.S. and other western NATO countries.
There is scarcely a status quo to oppose. For weeks, escalations have continued apace. London has deployed SAS troops in Kiev to train Ukrainian troops on English anti-tank weapons. The U.S. is training Kiev’s troops in Germany and two other secret locations in Europe on heavy artillery, radar systems, and armored vehicles. Washington is expanding intelligence sharing with Kiev for its war with Russia in the Donbas, providing howitzers, vehicles to carry them, and an additional 144,000 artillery rounds. Poland is sending tanks to Ukraine, Slovenia has a plan to send large numbers of T-72 battle tanks as well. The Germans will be supplying anti-aircraft tanks to Kiev and the Pentagon says an unidentified European ally is providing Ukraine with warplanes.
London’s armed forces minister declared his government’s support for Kiev’s “completely legitimate” attacks inside Russia using British arms. This comes amid an uptick in reports of Ukrainian cross border drone and helicopter assaults including on Russian oil depots, residential areas, and villages. The U.S. and its European allies are implementing a long term policy that looks to exile Russia, looking toward a new world order where they no longer seek to “coexist” with Moscow.
London wants Europe to cut off all Russian energy “once and for all,” which would make war more likely, impoverish innocent people, and cause massive recessions.
The U.S., NATO, and Russian presence in the Mediterranean Sea has reached Cold War levels, as NATO builds new Eastern European battlegroups.
In March, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg warned that any “use of chemical weapons would totally change the nature of the conflict, it would be a blatant violation of international law and would have far-reaching consequences.” This weekend, legislation for a new Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) has been introduced by Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). Kinzinger’s announcement calls the would be AUMF a “clear red line,” which would authorize Biden to deploy troops to Ukraine to fight Russians if Moscow should “use chemical, biological, and/or nuclear weapons.”
With the almost complete bipartisan Congressional support for the renewal of Lend-Lease and other anti-Russia, pro-war legislation, it is not outside the realm of possibility that this bill and its cynical redline trap becomes law.
For nearly two decades, Washington has funded “biological research” and other laboratories inside Ukraine. According to the head of the DoD’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, some of these labs may contain Soviet-era bioweapons.
As Dave DeCamp, news editor at Antiwar.com, has reported,
The Pentagon funds labs in Ukraine through its Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). According to a Pentagon fact sheet released last month, since 2005, the U.S. has “invested” $200 million in “supporting 46 Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and diagnostic sites.”
Moscow has accused Ukraine of conducting an emergency clean-up of a secret Pentagon-funded biological weapons program when Russia invaded. The World Health Organization said it advised Ukraine to destroy “high-threat pathogens” around the time of the invasion.
For their part, the U.S. maintains that the program in Ukraine and other former Soviet states is meant to reduce the threat of biological weapons left over from the Soviet Union. While downplaying the threat of the labs, Pentagon officials have also warned that they could still contain Soviet-era bioweapons.
Robert Pope, the director of the DTRA’s Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, told the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in February that the labs might contain Soviet bioweapons and warned that the fighting in Ukraine could lead to the release of a dangerous pathogen.
Much like previous Syrian redlines, this is practically the hawks’ invitation to bad actors seeking U.S. intervention to go ahead and launch an attack that could be plausibly blamed on our Hitler du jour to manufacture their desired casus belli.
It seems there may be ample sites somebody could hit that would cross Kinzinger’s cleverly drawn line in the sand. And much like the CIA, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia’s al Qaeda allies in Syria, the Azov Battalion and other Nazi groups, who have taken a humiliating beating thus far in the war, are prime candidates to launch a false flag.
If the American people do not wake up and demand an end to our government’s intervention in Ukraine, the U.S. may be directly entering this war soon.
If Russia was doing what the U.S. and its allies are doing in Ukraine, in Mexico or Canada, in addition to the unprecedented economic war being waged, these hawks in D.C. would have pulled the aforementioned nuclear trigger months ago.
“Global NATO” to have disastrous effect on world security
By Drago Bosnic | May 4, 2022
In late April, when the UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called for the creation of a “Global NATO” as part of “a shift in world order”, few seem to have noticed the magnitude of such an announcement. The statement followed calls by US President Joe Biden for a ‘New World Order to be established’ just four weeks prior during his Warsaw speech. The UK Foreign Secretary claimed that the world order established after the Second World War was failing and that the formation of “a global NATO” was necessary to “restore Western and allied ascent” in global affairs.
“My vision is a world where free nations are assertive and in the ascendant. Where freedom and democracy are strengthened through a network of economic and security partnerships.”
She stressed that the UN Security Council and other post-WWII security structures “have been bent out of shape so far, they have enabled rather than contained aggression.” The bending (or outright ignoring) of UN rules to enable aggression on various countries is most certainly true, just not in the way Liz Truss thinks.
The statement comes amid repeated expressions of frustration among many Western leaders that of the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council, the only two non-Western members (China and Russia) blocked resolutions targeting other non-Western countries such as Syria, Zimbabwe, Iran, Sudan, and most recently Russia itself. It follows longstanding calls for a new global governance superstructure, most likely based on NATO, which would allow the West and Western-aligned countries to “assert and coordinate greater power” in global affairs. In other words, a more “optimized” use of the dwindling power of the political West and its vassals while attempting to take control of other countries’ resources.
Truss stressed that under this new form of globalization, access to international security and trade should be made conditional on countries’ political positions. The UK Foreign Secretary stated that “economic access is no longer a given” and that it “has to be earned.” She added that countries who wish to earn it “must play by the rules” and that “this also includes China.” These statements come as Western powers openly threatened they would target Russian shipping in international waters, a move similar to targeting Iran and North Korea. The possibility of targeting Chinese shipping was notably also raised in a US Naval Institute paper two years prior. This effectively amounts to piracy, ever so euphemistically called “enforcement of freedom of navigation”.
In regards to the “Global NATO” and the future targeting of China, Truss emphasized plans to further arm the government in Taipei, in what would be yet another direct move against the People’s Republic of China. Taiwan is universally recognized as a part of China by the United Nations, all UN member states, as well as the constitution of the island itself. However, maintaining state-like institutions and Western-aligned administration there has increasingly been raised as a priority for Western security architecture.
Combined with attempts of a crawling reformation of the UN, the creation of a “Global NATO”, whatever it may be called, would spell a disaster for the security of the world. The North Atlantic Alliance has a dubious security track record, to say the least. Despite being formed as a supposedly “defensive” security pact, the alliance is anything but. It has so far attacked numerous countries, starting with the destruction of former Yugoslavia to invasions and bombings all across the Middle East, stretching from Libya to Afghanistan.
Concurrently, the belligerent alliance is continuing its expansion in Europe, getting ever closer to Russian borders. Despite decades of Russia’s repeated pleas and warnings, NATO refuses to honor the promise given to Mikhail Gorbachev that it would not be expanding “an inch to the east”. The result of such a policy are the tragic events now taking place in Ukraine. Worse yet, the US, as NATO’s leading member, has withdrawn from all arms control agreements, with the exception of the New START, which is set to expire in less than 4 years.
NATO’s aggressive posturing in Europe and the Middle East has pushed the world into another arms race, with Russia being forced to develop a plethora of new types of weapons, most notably hypersonic weapons and new advanced intercontinental ballistic missiles to restore the delicate strategic balance of power. Middle Eastern powers, such as Iran, are forced to spend a large portion of their GDP on the military since the US (and by extension NATO) has been threatening the country for decades. Conflicts in both Ukraine and Syria primarily stem from NATO policies toward Russia and Iran.
This new “Global NATO” is set to spill this instability into the Asia-Pacific region, which has so far enjoyed a decades-long period of unprecedented peace and prosperity. The crucial part of this growth has been the blistering economic development of China. In order to curb China’s growth, the US first engaged in a massive trade war with the Asian giant. However, with the realization this would only have a very limited effect on China’s growing power, the US and NATO are determined to challenge China militarily, forcing it to spend more on defense, while also fragmenting the Asia-Pacific region along geopolitical lines. Western planners believe this would inevitably lead to economic decoupling, which would negatively affect China’s export-oriented economy and long-term development.
It’s a certainty that countries such as Japan and Australia would be involved in these efforts. However, getting other powers in the region to come on board will be much more problematic. South Korea is too focused on Pyongyang and China’s influence there is still appreciated in Seoul, in addition to extensive economic cooperation. India, for its part, is deemed as “too independent” for the taste of the political West, which now effectively operates under a “you’re either with us or against us” foreign policy framework.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Elon Musk responds to Mike Huckabee’s request for Twitter to remove online anonymity
By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | May 3, 2022
Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has asked Elon Musk to remove online anonymity if his Twitter bid becomes successful, sparking concern from privacy advocates about how Musk will “authenticate all humans” and whether it will involve users handing over ID to use the platform.
“I hope @elonmusk will insist that all Twitter posters use their real names & not be keyboard cowards hiding behind silly little sophomoric screen names. Be man enough or woman enough (if you even know what that is) to stand by what you say! If you can’t own it don’t say it,” Huckabee tweeted.
Twitter has distinguished itself from other platforms like Facebook by allowing users to use pseudonyms. For that reason, people who need anonymity, like whistleblowers and dissidents in repressive regimes, people living in countries where anonymity is the difference between life and death, or even those who have opinions that go against the mainstream, have had a place where they can speak freely without fear of retribution.
In a new tweet, Musk replied to Huckabee indicating that there will be a balance when it comes to authenticating users vs preserving anonymity.
In a series of tweets, US Naval Academy’s associate professor of Cybersecurity Law Jeff Kosseff explained why Twitter should continue to allow anonymity.
“The Musk/Twitter press release states that the company will authenticate ‘all humans.’ I’m not sure what this means, but there is at least a chance that it could compromise users’ ability to be anonymous. In this thread I explain some concerns with this possibility,” Kosseff wrote.
“At least some high-profile commentators have interpreted it as banning anonymity/requiring ID verification. If that is the case, and it applies to “all humans” (rather than just making verification an option for everyone), then that could threaten some of the values that have helped to define and distinguish Twitter from platforms like Facebook that have always required real names.”
Twitter itself supported anonymity in a 2021 blog post, citing a PhD graduate who was able to express her frustration with the lack of job prospects without fearing her current employer would retaliate or losing potential employers.
“Being able to express vulnerability and the messiness of real life is important to Brooke, which is why she Tweets under a pseudonym,” the post read. “This is the handle where she can be herself, including talking frankly about the challenges of job searching, without worrying about turning off a potential employer.”
If Twitter were to collect ID on users, dictatorial governments would be able to pressure it to provide personally identifiable data of critics, journalists, and dissidents. That would contradict Musk’s stand of free speech stance.
Names of Hungarian PM, Croatian President Appear on Notorious Ukrainian Kill List Site
Samizdat | May 2, 2022
Curated by the Security Service of Ukraine and officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Myrotvorets website publishes the personal info of so-called “enemies of Ukraine”. Several individuals whose names have been posted on the site have been murdered, and rights groups and governments have repeatedly called for it to be taken down.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s name has appeared on the notorious Ukrainian website Myrotvorets.center (lit. “Peacekeeper”).
The 58-year-old politician is listed as an “accomplice of Russian war criminals”, an “accomplice in the crimes of Russian authorities against Ukraine and its citizens”, for his “participation in acts of humanitarian aggression against Ukraine”, as an “anti-Ukrainian propagandist”, and for his general all-round “cooperation with the Russian aggressor”.
Orban’s specific “crimes” include his refusal to allow weapons intended for Ukraine to be sent through his country’s territory, and his refusal to reject Russian gas supplies even in the long-term. The prime minister’s willingness to pay for Russian gas in rubles is also mentioned.
The site further recalled Orban’s 4 April statement about the forces Hungary has faced to remain independent, ranging from the local opposition to “the bureaucrats in Brussels, money and institutes of the Soros empire, international media as well as the Ukrainian president”.
Finally, the website points to Orban’s demands that Kiev’s post-2014 authorities respect western Ukraine’s sizeable ethnic Hungarian community, and provide residents of Zakarpattia with greater autonomy.
Along with Orban, Croatian President Zoran Milanovic’s name has also been added to the site. Milanovic is listed as an “accomplice of Russian invaders” for his alleged “humanitarian aggression against Ukraine” for “the spreading of Kremlin propaganda” and so-called “support and justification of Russian aggression against Ukraine”.
The site recalls Milanovic’s 2 February 2022 remarks that Russia must be “a factor” in the “equation” of European-wide stability, and his opposition to Ukraine joining NATO.
Former Russian President and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, suggested that Orban and Milanovic’s appearance on the notorious website was a sign that Ukraine’s neo-Nazi elements were dissatisfied with the amount of weapons, mercenaries, and money they have received from the West.
“At this rate, soon Ukrainian Nazis will personally carry out reprises against objectionable leaders and ‘separate the sheep from the goats’ directly in European capitals”, Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel.
Hungary has refused to toe the line on the European Union’s anti-Russian policy in the wake of the escalation of the Ukraine crisis in February. On Sunday, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office Gergely Gulyas said that Budapest has “made it clear” that it will “never support” extending EU sanctions against Russian energy imports, implying that it may veto Brussels’ plans to ban Russian oil.
Journalists, human rights groups, the G7, and the Russian Foreign Ministry have repeatedly called for Myrotvorets to be shut down, citing its use against the so-called “enemies of Ukraine” to murder, threaten, and intimidate individuals whose names have been listed there. Set up in 2014, the site has since amassed tens of thousands of names, ranging from Ukrainian opposition politicians and public figures to foreign officials, journalists, and businessmen.
In 2015, former Ukrainian lawmaker Oleg Kalashnikov and journalist and writer Oles Buzina were murdered after their personal data (including addresses) were posted on the site. Before he was killed, Kalashnikov repeatedly reported on threats being made against his life after his info was placed on the site. After he and Buzina were killed, Myrotvorets’ official Twitter handle mockingly joked about “the successful completion of a combat mission by agent 404” – a reference to the well-known HTTP 404 “not found” error.
Several other journalists and public figures listed on the site have subsequently been killed. Among the deceased is Andrea Rocchelli, an Italian independent journalist working in Donbass.
In 2015, the website began to publish the personal data of Russian military personnel involved in the anti-terrorist operation in Syria. Then-adviser to the Ministry of Internal Affairs Anton Gerashchenko publicly encouraged Daesh (ISIS) to “deal with” Russian troops under Sharia law. His comments prompted Russia’s Investigative Committee to open a criminal case against him over public calls for terrorist activities.
In 2016, Myrotvorets got its hands on leaked detailed personal data of some 5,000 Ukrainian, Russian, and Western journalists who had worked in Donbass. Among the records leaked was detailed personal information including phone numbers and addresses, and many of the journalists have reported threats against their lives.
Orban isn’t the first Hungarian to be added to the Myrotvorets list. In 2018, the website listed over 300 ethnic Hungarian residents from Zakarpattia who had “illegally” obtained Hungarian citizenship (Ukraine doesn’t allow dual citizenship, but much of the country’s political and business elite holds two or more citizenships anyway). In October 2018, Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Peter Szijjarto blasted the site and the Ukrainian government, saying authorities in Kiev were using the website as part of a “hate campaign” in a desperate attempt to increase then-President Petro Poroshenko’s sagging approval ratings.
India, Germany cogitate on Ukraine
Germany to send fifty Leopard 1 tanks to Ukraine to fight Russia
BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | MAY 3, 2022
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s short visit to Germany pegged on the Indian-German Intergovernmental Commission meeting in Berlin on Monday inevitably came to focus on the Ukraine crisis. The western media would have loved to grill Modi on India’s reluctance to criticise Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. But German hosts thoughtfully skipped the customary Q&A after the joint appearance of Modi and Chancellor Olaf Scholz before the press.
India’s prudence is self-evident as much as Germany’s zealousness to flaunt its condemnation of Russia. Modi and Scholz are sailing in different boats. Modi draws flak for being a “strongman” who views the Ukraine crisis through the prism of India’s interests, while also taking a principled stance, whereas, Scholz carries the burden of vacuous moralising.
Scholz must prove constantly that he is indeed a loyal ally of President Biden and is by no means a “pacifist.” (To get a hang of Scholz’s predicament, read Spiegel’s maddening interview with him, here — alternatively annoying, infuriating, taunting, affronting and goading.)
Modi can afford to be nonchalant because he is clearheaded about where Indian interests lie — its strategic autonomy in a highly unpredictable international environment. But Scholz is nervous as a mouse because German interests are caught up betwixt the crosscurrents of European politics and the NATO’s epochal struggle to bring Russia down on its knees.
Modi is well ensconced in power while Scholz heads a precarious coalition of disparate partners. Modi could witness Scholz and his foreign minister Annalena Baerbock speaking in two different voices on Russia. Baerbock insisted that Russian forces should vacate Ukrainian soil before Western sanctions can be lifted, but Scholz toned down saying that the lifting of Western sanctions is linked to Russia and Ukraine reaching an agreement.
Germany is a divided house when it comes to Russia ties. On the contrary, aside the clutch of noisy American lobbyists operating in India, the Indian public at large recognises the centrality of India’s friendly relations with Russia.
India gets the space to manoeuvre, as Russia is excessively indulgent towards Delhi’ stance, which is, quintessentially, neither to support nor to oppose Moscow’s intervention — something like Professor Godbole in the EM Forster novel A Passage to India, a Brahman Hindu who is very spiritual and reluctant to become involved in human affairs.
Scholz who is new to international diplomacy could have learnt a thing or two from UK prime minister Boris Johnson’s recent visit to India. Johnson put Ukraine on the back burner and focused on the agenda of “Global Britain” to create his country’s post-Brexit pathway in India’s vast market.
That said, Scholz has done remarkably well in getting the US off his back over sanctions against gas supplies from Russia. Germany’s dependence on Russian supplies of oil and gas (and coal) has been heavy and the Americans accept it as a reality. The point is, Germany and Russia have had a dense relationship and the Ukraine crisis comes in handy for Washington to try to redefine the parameters within which German-Russian relations will work in future.
In India’s case, if Washington dared to bully the Modi government, it was largely because in the post-Cold War era, under successive Congress governments, India’s relations with Russia got atrophied to such an extent that Americans convinced themselves that it was a conscious Indian policy direction dictated by the compulsions of the “Washington Consensus,” which has been a beacon light for India’s past leaderships. Unsurprisingly, the Biden Administration misjudged that Modi too must be fair game.
But the core difference between the German and Indian predicament is that while German industry is a stakeholder in the relationship with Russia, India’s corporate houses, for reasons best known to them, sidestep the Russian turf in deference to the US wish. Thus, Washington has powerful Indian lobbyists and, therefore, the Modi government’s audacity to pursue an independent policy toward Russia becomes commendable.
The chances are that Germany may pick up the threads of its relationship with Russia once the Ukraine conflict ends. In the chronicle of the “German Question” in European history, Russia had the role of a balancer, mostly. But there is a deep economic and political crisis waiting to erupt in Germany and how it pans out is crucial.
The rising inflation and the dramatic fall in living standards is souring the German mood, as the debris from Ukraine falls on it. So far, an estimated 5 million Ukrainian refugees have entered Europe. This figure is expected to double in a near future.
Meanwhile, the looming food crisis will also put tens of millions of people in Africa or the Middle East on the verge of starvation fuelling in turn large scale migration to Europe. Such migration will inevitably bring the dregs of Ukrainian society into Germany, which means that organised crime, human trafficking, illegal drug distribution and transnational crime, etc. will increase. Make no mistake that the Ukrainian mafia will introduce a new vicious culture of crime as it begins to dominate the European streets.
All in all, a fine balance has been struck during Modi’s visit. The joint statement conceded the host country’s prerogative to reiterate its “strong condemnation of the unlawful and unprovoked aggression against Ukraine by Russian Forces.” But it formed a “stand alone” statement of a solitary sentence, which helps signal India’s distancing from it. Germany joined India’s call for an “immediate cessation of hostilities,” although Berlin just announced a major transfer of offensive weaponry to Ukraine as part of the US-led “coalition of the willing” and implicitly acquiesces with the Biden administration’s aggressive agenda of “weakening Russia” militarily.
Significantly, the sombre mood in Germany got reflected in the joint statement. The Indo-German economic relations are far below potential and will remain so. CNN carried a grim report in the weekend that not only is German economy heading into a recession but it may suffer “structural damage” that will make recovery a drawn-out process.
Clearly, behind the German rhetoric today, the fact remains that Berlin’s intelligence apparatus played a dubious role in Ukraine by navigating the ascendancy of the neo-Nazi forces to usurp power in Kiev in the coup in February 2014. This controversial past is now further complicated by Berlin fuelling the conflict by despatching tanks into Ukraine, which was after all the invasion route of Nazi Germany.
When it comes to Ukraine, Germany doesn’t make good company for India. We have a transparent record and with great honesty and integrity, Modi could forewarn , with Scholz listening, that “there will be no winning party in this war, everyone will suffer.”
PayPal seizes alternative media site’s money
Samizdat | May 3, 2022
Payment processor PayPal has frozen alternative media powerhouse Consortium News’ (CN) donation page without warning, confiscating the site’s $9,348.14 balance with no explanation beyond the claim that “an investigation and review” of the site’s “history” found “some potential risk associated with this account.”
CN was informed via email on Sunday that it couldn’t use PayPal anymore and told “we noticed activity in your account that’s inconsistent with our User Agreement and we [can] no longer offer you PayPal services.” Absent any further explanation beyond the desire to limit “potential risk exposure,” the site was informed that the nearly $10,000 sitting in its account would be effectively confiscated for “up to 180 days,” after which point, “if applicable, we’ll email you with information on how to withdraw any remaining money.”
The seizure came at a particularly damaging time for the reader-funded site, which had just begun a spring fundraising drive. Contacted by CN employees, a PayPal customer service representative confirmed on Sunday that no specific reason had been given by the “back office” for “permanently limiting” the account other than the aforementioned “potential risk.”
“I don’t see any existing case” of a complaint having been filed by “any agency, government or private, or any individual,” they told CN, promising to ask PayPal’s back office to explain its behavior to the website.
More ominously, the PayPal representative informed CN that “if there was a violation,” it was “possible” the $9,348.14 balance in its account would be kept by PayPal as “damages.” According to PayPal’s own documentation, violations include providing “false, inaccurate or misleading information” to PayPal, its customers, or “third parties.”
In a blog post discussing the suspension, CN editor-in-chief Joe Lauria suggested the site had been targeted due to its coverage of the conflict in Ukraine, noting that MintPress News – another well-known alt-media website with similar political views regarding the US and NATO’s foreign adventures – had its own account frozen by PayPal last week. PayPal’s definition of “violations,” Lauria implied, could easily be stretched to include the Orwellian crime du jour of “fake news,” an especially egregious offense during wartime.
Last week, former RT America correspondent Caleb Maupin also had his PayPal account frozen without warning or explanation, as did MintPress employees Alan MacLeod and Mnar Adley. Many on social media have speculated that the payment processor is deliberately targeting those with dissident views on the conflict in Ukraine and US foreign policy in general – “thoughtcrimes” hundreds of other prominent commentators have been deplatformed for in the past.
Consortium News was founded in 1995 by the late journalist Robert Parry, whose claims to fame included exposing the Iran-Contra scandal, in opposition to what the site’s own biography describes as “a crisis building in the US news media.”
Skewering the “pattern of groupthink on issue after issue, often ignoring important factual information because it didn’t fit with what all the Important People knew to be true.”
By redefining UNRWA, Washington destroys the foundation for a Just peace in Palestine
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | May 3, 2022
Palestinians are justifiably worried that the mandate granted to the United Nations Agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, might be coming to an end. UNRWA’s mission, which has been in effect since 1949, has done more than provide urgent aid and support to millions of refugees. It was also a political platform that protected and preserved the rights of several generations of Palestinians.
Though UNRWA was not established as a political or legal platform per se, the context of its mandate was largely political, since Palestinians became refugees as a result of military and political events – the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people by Israel and the latter’s refusal to respect the Right of Return for Palestinians as enshrined in UN resolution 194 (III) of 11 December, 1948.
“UNRWA has a humanitarian and development mandate to provide assistance and protection to Palestine refugees pending a just and lasting solution to their plight,” the UN General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV) of 8 December, 1949 read. Alas, neither a ‘lasting solution’ to the plight of the refugees, nor even a political horizon has been achieved. Instead of using this realization as a way to revisit the international community’s failure to bring justice to Palestine and to hold Israel and its US benefactors accountable, it is UNRWA and, by extension, the refugees that are being punished.
In a stern warning on 24 April, the head of the political committee at the Palestinian National Council (PNC), Saleh Nasser said that UNRWA’s mandate might be coming to an end. Nasser referenced a recent statement by the UN body’s Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, about the future of the organization.
Lazzarini’s statement, published a day earlier, left room for some interpretation, though it was clear that something fundamental regarding the status, mandate and work of UNRWA is about to change. “We can admit that the current situation is untenable and will inevitably result in the erosion of the quality of the UNRWA services or, worse, to their interruption,” Lazzarini said.
Commenting on the statement, Nasser said that this “is a prelude to donors stopping their funding for UNRWA.”
The subject of UNRWA’s future is now a priority within the Palestinian, but also Arab political discourse. Any attempts at canceling or redefining UNRWA’s mission will pose a serious, if not an unprecedented challenge for Palestinians. UNRWA provides educational, health and other support for 5.6 million Palestinians in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. With an annual budget of $1.6 billion, this support, and the massive network that has been created by the organization, cannot be easily replaced.
Equally important is the political nature of the organization. The very existence of UNRWA means that there is a political issue that must be addressed regarding the plight and future of Palestinian refugees. In fact, it is not the mere lack of enthusiasm to finance the organisation that has caused the current crisis. It is something bigger, and far more sinister.
In June 2018, Jared Kushner, son-in-law and advisor to former US President Donald Trump, visited Amman, Jordan, where he, according to the US Foreign Policy magazine, tried to persuade Jordan’s King Abdullah to remove the refugee status from 2 million Palestinians currently living in the country.
This and other attempts have failed. In September 2018, Washington, under the Trump administration, decided to cease its financial support of UNRWA. As the organization’s main funder, the American decision was devastating, because about 30 per cent of UNRWA’s money comes from the US alone. Yet, UNRWA hobbled along by increasing its reliance on the private sector and individual donations.
Though the Palestinian leadership celebrated the Biden Administration’s decision to resume UNRWA’s funding on April 7, 2021, a little caveat in Washington’s move was largely kept secret. Washington only agreed to fund UNRWA after the latter agreed to sign a two-year plan, known as Framework for Cooperation. In essence, the plan effectively turned UNRWA into a platform for Israel and American policies in Palestine, whereby the UN body consented to US – thus Israeli – demands to ensure that no aid would reach any Palestinian refugee who has received military training “as a member of the so-called Palestinian Liberation Army”, other organizations or “has engaged in any act of terrorism”. Moreover, the Framework expects UNRWA to monitor “Palestinian curriculum content”.
By entering into an agreement with the US Department of State, “UNRWA has effectively transformed itself from a humanitarian agency that provides assistance and relief to Palestinian refugees, to a security agency furthering the security and political agenda of the US, and ultimately Israel,” BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights noted.
Palestinian protests, however, did not change the new reality, which effectively altered the entire mandate granted to UNRWA by the international community nearly 73 years ago. Worse, European countries followed suit when, last September, the European parliament advanced an amendment that would condition EU support of UNRWA on the editing and rewriting of Palestinian school text books that, supposedly, ‘incite violence’ against Israel.
Instead of focusing solely on shutting down UNRWA immediately, the US, Israel and their supporters are working to change the nature of the organization’s mission and to entirely rewrite its original mandate. The agency that was established to protect the rights of the refugees, is now expected to protect Israeli, American and western interests in Palestine.
Though UNRWA was never an ideal organization, it has indeed succeeded in helping millions of Palestinians throughout the years, while preserving the political nature of their plight.
Though the Palestinian Authority, various poltical factions, Arab governments and others have protested the Israeli-American designs against UNRWA, such protestations are unlikely to make much difference, considering that UNRWA itself is surrendering to outside pressures. While Palestinians, Arabs and their allies must continue to fight for UNRWA’s original mission, they must urgently develop alternative plans and platforms that would shield Palestinian refugees and their Right of Return from becoming marginal and, eventually, forgotten.
If Palestinian refugees are removed from the list of political priorities concerning the future of a just peace in Palestine, neither justice nor peace can possibly be attained.
Russia doubles down on Hitler remarks, says Israel supports neo-Nazis
Press TV – May 3, 2022
Russia says Israel is supporting “the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev”, raising the stakes in its tensions with Tel Aviv over the raging war in Ukraine.
The spat began after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, speaking to Italian outlet Mediaset’s Rete 4 channel in an interview released Sunday, said that Adolf Hitler had Jewish origins.
Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid on Monday accused Lavrov of making an “unforgivable and outrageous statement as well as a terrible historical error” and summoned Moscow’s ambassador for “clarifications”.
“We have paid attention to Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s anti-historical remarks, which largely explain the current government’s decision to support the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev,” said the Russian foreign ministry in a statement on Tuesday.
“History unfortunately knows tragic examples of cooperation between Jews and Nazis,” it said.
In his interview, Lavrov said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “puts forward an argument of what kind of Nazism can they have if he himself is Jewish”.
Lavrov, according to a transcript posted on the Russian foreign ministry website, then added: “I could be wrong, but Hitler also had Jewish blood”.
Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett characterized Lavrov’s remarks as “lies” that he said effectively “accuse the Jews themselves of the most awful crimes in history”, perpetrated against themselves.
On Tuesday, the Russian foreign ministry said “the Jewish origins of the president (Zelensky) is not a guarantee of protection against rampant neo-Nazism in the country”.
“Ukraine, may it be said in passing, is not the only one in this case,” the ministry said, citing Latvian President Egils Levits who “has also Jewish roots and he also gives cover… to the rehabilitation of the Waffen SS in his country”.
Israel has expressed solidarity with Ukraine but unlike its Western allies, it has refrained from enforcing formal sanctions on Russia over its military operation in the neighboring country.
Last month, Lapid accused Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine. Moscow hit back, accusing Israel of using Ukraine to “distract” the world from its ongoing aggression against Palestinians.
Biden’s ‘Disinformation Governance Board’ is another propaganda tool
By Ian Miles Cheong | Samizdat | May 3, 2022
US President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security announced last week that it had formed a “Disinformation Governance Board” to fight the spread of so-called disinformation on the Internet. While White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki didn’t elaborate on how the bureau would operate, she suggested that it would monitor disinformation on topics like COVID-19 and elections.
Conservatives have often half-joked about George Orwell’s “1984” becoming a reality, but it appears that the Biden administration has decided to literally take a page from the book and create a “Ministry of Truth”.
The board’s aim is to target “disinformation,” but what constitutes disinformation? Many times over the years we have seen complete censorship from government officials and Big Tech social media companies, most infamously during the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, which saw major tech platforms and politicians painting it as “Russian propaganda.”
Allowing the government to dictate what “the truth” is sets a dangerous precedent, as it instead promotes desired narratives to bolster poll numbers, ratings, or nudging the citizenry into following government edicts – all on the basis of “trust us, we know what’s best for you.”
Facts be damned. Just do as you’re told. This was seen multiple times during the pandemic era, when both Dr. Anthony Fauci and then-Surgeon General Jerome Adams hummed and harred over mask-wearing and social distancing – first instructing the public not to wear masks, and then much later calling it a necessity.
Gatekeeping discourse is a surefire way to control the narrative, controlling what people see, what they say, and ultimately – what they believe. It’s also an effective means to silence dissent, and quash those who might speak out against the regime’s approved narrative – or even the regime itself.
The new Ministry of Truth is a tool, and there is no reality in which this tool will not be used for bad intent – and it’ll claim to be doing it all in the name of the greater good.
Unsurprisingly, the Ministry of Truth was rushed into creation seemingly as a reaction to “free speech absolutist” Elon Musk’s purchase of the social media platform, Twitter, the de facto town square of political discourse and public narratives.
With the relinquishment of Twitter to Musk, those who control mainstream narratives fear they will lose out on an important resource, and will no longer be able to promote narratives and fix algorithms to sway public opinion – at least not with ease. There will be pushback, and their positions are not ones they are willing to defend, hence why the creation of this new tool is necessary. It keeps the plebeians in check.
Free speech, which in Musk’s belief is “essential to a functioning democracy,” flies directly in the face of the Biden administration’s attempts to crack down on viewpoints that contradict the regime’s official narrative. And who better to head the Disinformation Governance Board than Nina Jankowicz, who herself perpetuated several regime-approved falsehoods?
Jankowicz, who previously advised the Ukrainian government on disinformation and strategic communications under the auspices of a Fulbright-Clinton Public Policy Fellowship, voiced her support for Christopher Steele, whose infamous “Steele dossier” on Russian election interference during Donald Trump’s 2016 election dogged the presidency for years. Despite Steele’s loss of credibility, Jankowicz hyped up the former spy in August 2020 as being able to offer “some great historical context about the evolution of disinfo” when he spoke on a podcast about the topic.
It’s worth noting that the infamous dossier, which included the unverifiable claim that Russia had “kompromat” on Trump in the form of a sex tape, has since been entirely discredited. Steele’s main source, Igor Danchenko, was later charged with five counts of making false statements to the FBI. Jankowicz also repeated the unproven theory that Hunter Biden’s laptop was the product of a Russian disinformation campaign, spread by members of the Trump campaign.
“Back on the ‘laptop from hell,’ apparently—Biden notes 50 former natsec officials and 5 former CIA heads that believe the laptop is a Russian influence op,” Jankowicz said on Twitter. “Trump says ‘Russia, Russia, Russia.’”
She attempted to distance herself from her remarks with the claim that she was simply livetweeting Trump’s first presidential debate with Biden. However, when solicited by the Associated Press in October 2020 for her thoughts on the laptop, Jankowicz told the publication that “We should view it as a Trump campaign product,” dismissing the fact that the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden.
As detailed by Newsweek, Jankowicz continued to perpetuate doubt against the story, tweeting on October 22, 2020 that “The emails don’t need to be altered to be part of an influence campaign. Voters deserve that context, not a [fairy] tale about a laptop repair shop.”
In a consolidated effort to disqualify the New York Post’s original report on Hunter Biden’s laptop as “disinformation”, Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms banned the New York Post and prevented its users from sharing the story weeks ahead of the 2020 US presidential election. The original report on the laptop has since been validated by a comprehensive report about the ongoing federal probe into Hunter Biden’s tax filings, published by the New York Times.
Twitter’s then-CEO Jack Dorsey later admitted to a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that censoring the report was a “total mistake,” and chalked up the decision to a “process error.”
Both Twitter and Facebook heads were grilled over their companies’ perceived anti-conservative bias and penchant for censoring so-called “disinformation,” with the censorship usually aimed at conservatives. It’s worth pointing out again that the now-discredited “Steele dossier” had no problem gaining traction when it first ran on BuzzFeed.
Nina Jankowicz had no problem spreading actual disinformation while helping to silence the truth under the auspices of “combating disinformation.” Given her predilection towards perpetuating anti-Russian narratives, one might ask if contradictory evidence to the “Snake Island” and “Ghost of Kiev” hoaxes constitute forms of “disinformation” in her book. After all, the mainstream media is chiefly responsible for promoting these heroic war stories, both of which were almost immediately discredited by the Russian media – and later by western experts. Even Ukraine’s own propagandists were forced to instruct the public to stop promoting disinformation about the conflict. Would the Ministry of Truth move to silence such attacks on its credibility?
Those concerned with the truth must do everything in their power to resist the Biden administration’s efforts to police the truth. To that end, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is one of the few American leaders who has stepped up and vowed to fight back against the Orwellian disinformation bureau.
“They want to be able to put out false narratives without people being able to speak out and fight back,” DeSantis said. “But we’re not going to let Biden get away with this one, so we will be fighting back.” Referring to the regime as a “decaying and discredited ruling elite in this country,” DeSantis said: “We believe it’s essential that individual Floridians and Americans are able to speak out against the false narratives trying to be jammed down our throats by this regime.”
Yes, TCW is being censored
TCW Defending Freedom | May 3, 2022
AFTER many reports over the weekend that the site was not working for some users, we have established that we are being blocked by the adult content filter on the Internet Service Provider (ISP) Three.
Affected users get the message above, which does not make it clear that the site is being censored, but gives an erroneous message about the SSL certificate. This makes it look like a misconfiguration on our part, but this is not the case.
We have contacted Three to enquire exactly why TCW has been added to their adult content filter.
Three use the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) guidelines, which you can find here.
TCW can appeal to BBFC to be unblocked by Three, and you can be sure that we are following this process. We have also registered the censorship with the Open Rights Group’s Blocked! website.
In the meantime, Three users may wish to reconsider their choice of ISP. Customers of Three can request that the adult filter be turned off by contacting customer services. A non-censoring ISP would be a good idea too – we can recommend Andrews and Arnold. A good VPN (Virtual Private Network) might be an idea too, if you would prefer that your ISP does not control the content you are able to access online. IVPN are great.
We will be tweeting @ThreeUKsupport and @ThreeUK to see what they have to say. It would be helpful if some of our readers could do this too.
If this can happen to TCW, it can happen to any site on the internet. Resist online censorship, for that is what this is.
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“Democratic Institutions?” – 10 Lessons from history that will destroy your trust in the CIA
By Kit | OffGuardian | July 20, 2018
… At every corner, we are urged to simply believe what we are told. Whether it is about believing Porton Down and MI6 about “novichok”, or believing the White Helmets about Sarin, or believing the FBI about “collusion”, we are presented with no facts, just assertions from authority. Those who question those assertions are deemed “bots” at best or “traitors” at worst.
Well here, fellow traitors, are the Top Ten reasons to question anything and everything the CIA – or any intelligence agency – has ever told you. … Read full article
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Roosevelt’s Partnership with Stalin
- Strategic Ambiguity (If We Must)
- Finland shreds nuclear weapons ban
- Kiev turns to ‘systematic killing’ of Zaporozhye plant staff – Russia’s nuclear chief
- Censored Lavrov article Politico refused to publish (FULL TEXT)
- Israel’s censor silenced 5,700 reports in 2025
- After US-Iran deal, Israeli minister threatens war on Syria ‘sooner or later’
- When the Iran War is over: Why the West Bank may be Netanyahu’s next front
- Israeli forces launch fresh ground incursions into Syria’s Quneitra, interrogate locals
- Syria ‘unwilling, unprepared’ to attack Lebanon despite US pressure: Report
- If Americans Knew
- What Ceasefire? Israel Has Now Killed Over 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza Since October
- U.S. Whole-of-Government Takeover by Israel
- Netanyahu’s Mouthpieces Turn on Trump, Revealing a Deeper Israeli Ingratitude
- Senate wants to force US to share sensitive intel with Israel
- Trump ended his idiotic Iran war. Good.
- Khanna Becomes First in Congress to Sign ‘Peace Pledge’ Promising to Reject AIPAC Funds
- Look who’s losing it over Trump’s Iran deal
- Israel has killed over 1,000 Gazans during 8-month “ceasefire” – Daily Update
- REVEALED: Former Top DEA Official Says Israel Spies on US Law Enforcement
- What would happen if US actually cut off military aid to Israel?
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
- Germany’s Die Welt: “Too Much Is Too Much” … Green Energies Are Cannabalizing Each Other!
- Germany’s Ecological Holocaust… Once Fairy Tale Forests Getting Cleared For Wind Turbines
- A Grand Solar Minimum Has Arrived…Global Cooling Of At Least 1°C Is Expected By The 2030s, 2040s
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