Eighteen senior former intelligence professionals have signed an ‘alert memorandum’ to President Biden warning him what will follow his decision to send Abrams tanks to Ukraine.
Calling themselves Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, they informed him: ‘What your advisers should have told you is that none of the newly promised weaponry will stop Russia from defeating what’s left of the Ukrainian army. If you have been told otherwise, replace your intelligence and military advisers with competent professionals – the sooner the better.’
Two decades ago, before the US/UK attack on Iraq, some of the same signatories warned President George W Bush that ‘justification’ for such an attack was based on false intelligence. In their February 5, 2003 memorandum on Colin Powell’s speech, they alerted the then president to the unintended consequences of an attack on Iraq which were likely to be catastrophic. Then, as now, they urged the president to widen the circle of his advisers beyond those clearly bent on a war for which they saw no compelling reason. Five years later the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded: ‘In making the case for war, the [Bush] Administration repeatedly presented intelligence as fact when in reality it was unsubstantiated, contradicted, or even non-existent.’
The current Alert Memorandum goes on: ‘The issuances of your current intelligence advisers rival those of Bush’s and Cheney’s fixers in disingenuousness. Their statements run from dishonest to naïve. They betray a woeful lack of understanding of Russia’s strategic concerns and its determination to use its formidable military power to meet perceived external threats. The statements also reflect abysmal ignorance regarding how US behaviour has led willy-nilly to a profound shift in the world correlation of forces in favour of Russia and China – to include making them military allies in all but name.’
Even a casual observer of events in Ukraine since the collapse of the Soviet Union is aware that Nato’s continuous eastwards push has been provocative because Vladimir Putin had made it abundantly clear that Nato expansion into Ukraine was a red line for Russia. Some will also know that in 2014 and 2015 Russia brokered two truces, called the Minsk Protocols I and II, in an attempt to end the slaughter of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine by the AFU (Armed Forces of Ukraine). These agreements were simply ignored. Fewer may know that on February 16, 2022, a week before Putin sent combat troops into Ukraine, the AFU began heavy bombardment of the area in Eastern Ukraine mainly occupied by ethnic Russians. Yet, just as the media echoed and reinforced the false claims of WMD in Iraq, so it pushes the myth that Putin launched an ‘unprovoked invasion’ of Ukraine.
Public opinion in the US is not totally fooled, however, as manifested by a new right-left coalition which is organising a protest march from the Lincoln Memorial to the White House next Sunday demanding ‘Not one more penny for war in Ukraine’.
The sponsoring organisations of this new movement are the People’s Party and the Libertarian Party. The former was formed in 2020, but the latter is the third-largest political party in the US by voter registration.
The key demands of the demonstration are:
· Not one more penny for war in Ukraine
The Democrats and Republicans have armed Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in weapons and militarised aid. The war has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.
· Negotiate peace
The US government instigated the war in Ukraine with a coup of its democratically elected government in 2014, and sabotaged a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
· Stop the war inflation
The US blew up the Russian gas pipeline to Europe to break up trade relations between Russia and Europe, starve the latter of energy and de-industrialise its countries.
· Disband Nato
Nato expansion to Russia’s border provoked the war in Ukraine. Nato is a warmongering relic of the Cold War. Disband it like the Warsaw Pact.
February 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Solidarity and Activism | Ukraine, United States |
6 Comments
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi giving a joint press conference. © AFP / Iranian Presidency
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is going to make an official visit to China next week, the Chinese Foreign Ministry has said.
Raisi’s planned visit will take place between February 14 and 16 and is at the invitation of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the ministry announced in a statement on Sunday.
The three-day trip will, among other elements, include talks between Raisi and Xi, a joint meeting of the leaders with Iranian and Chinese businessmen, and the signing of cooperation documents between the delegations of the two countries, according to Iran’s state-run news agency IRNA.
Also reporting on the upcoming visit, US outlet Politico said that it’s “expected to deepen ties between the two political and economic partners that are opposed to the US-led Western domination of international affairs.”
Xi and Raisi last met during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit last September in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. During those talks, the Chinese leader insisted that consolidating their strategic partnership was a common choice for both Beijing and Tehran.
In December, Chinese Vice President Hu Chunhua visited Iran and met with Raisi, with both sides expressing eagerness to boost bilateral ties further.
China is Iran’s largest trading partner and the main buyer of its oil amid US sanctions on Tehran. According to Iranian data, its exports to China reached $12.6 billion in the last ten months. The country also bought $12.7 billion worth of Chinese goods during the period.
Last year, Iran was formally included into the SCO as a permanent member and also applied to join BRICS – the two international organizations in which China and Russia play a major role.
February 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics | China, Iran, Sanctions against Iran |
4 Comments
Wednesday, Congress held a hearing on Twitter’s censorship of The New York Post and its coverage of Hunter Biden’s laptop. While House Republicans focused on issues like shadowbanning and government collusion with Big Tech, Rep. Jamie Raskin and other Democrats advocated for increased censorship from Silicon Valley companies.
Raskin argued that the committee would be better served focusing on “the real threats of massive Russian disinformation and white nationalist violent incitement on social media.”
Like the Biden Administration’s usurpation of the First Amendment, Raskin’s cohort’s goal is censorship and the accompanying augmentation of state power, not challenging the veracity of opponents’ arguments or claims.
In “Shouting Covid in a Crowded Theater,” I discuss how officials in the Biden Administration use wartime rhetorical strategies to slander dissidents. In doing so, they conflate dissent with threats to public safety to censor critics.
When discussing public health, the regime consistently uses labels of “misinformation” and “disinformation.” But the more we learn about government operations, the more it appears that these labels are references to inconvenience, not falsity.
This strategy extends beyond the country’s COVID response.
Wednesday morning, Seymour Hersh published “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline.”
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 Pipelines exploded in September 2022. The Nord Stream 1 has delivered natural gas from Russia to Europe for over a decade, and Russia was developing the Nord Stream 2 at the time. Outlets like The New York Times called the explosions “a mystery.”
The sabotage presented a major energy crisis for the United States’ European allies. Europe imports nearly 40% of its gas from Russia, and the Nord Stream 1 was responsible for delivering approximately one third of that supply.
Now, Hersh reports that “the United States executed a covert sea operation” with Navy divers to sabotage Russia’s pipelines with explosives.
For a less obsequious press corps, this should have been an easy story to crack.
In the weeks leading up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, President Biden announced his intention to act against the pipelines in the event of war.
“If Russia invades… there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2,” he told reporters. “We will bring an end to it.”
“How will you do that exactly?” a reporter asked.
“I promise you we will be able to do it,” President Biden said with a slight smile.
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland was equally as explicit.
“I want to be very clear to you today,” she told reporters in January 2022. “If Russia invades Ukraine, one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.”
In September, Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed “Anglo-Saxons” in the West for “terror attacks” on the pipelines. “Those who profit from it have done it,” Putin told the press.
President Biden chastised Putin’s accusation for “pumping out disinformation and lies.”
“Just don’t listen to what Putin’s saying,” Biden added. “What he’s saying we know is not true.”
White House National Security spokeswoman Adrienne Watson backed up Biden’s claim, referring to Putin’s accusation as “Russia’s disinformation.”
Russia’s U.N. ambassador also implied that the United States had been involved in the sabotage. Richard Mills, U.S. deputy ambassador to the U.N., responded by calling the claims “conspiracy theories and disinformation.”
Despite the Commander and Chief’s explicit announcement that he would take action against the Nord Stream pipeline, a credulous press corps has dutifully parotted government talking points that accusations of western involvement in the sabotage are “baseless” “misinformation,” “disinformation,” and “conspiracy theories.”
This all follows a similar pattern to the informational warfare of the Covid era: an inconvenient narrative arises, the government and lemmings in the media slander it as false and dangerous, and, months later, the dispute in question turns out to be true (or at least highly plausible).
Arguments over natural immunity, vaccine efficacy, masks, the lab leak hypothesis, school shutdowns, lockdowns, and the scientific basis of social distancing are just a few examples that followed this cycle of reporting.
This was the same pattern as The New York Post’s coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop. Now, at hearings to investigate corruption that implicated Big Tech, intelligence officials, and the federal government, Raskin and his cohorts return to their familiar censorship ploys.
For censors, augmentation of power, not truth, remains the chief objective. To achieve this goal, they conflate dissent with domestic terrorism.
For example, the Department of Homeland Security’s “National Terrorism Advisory Service” listed misinformation and disinformation as terrorism threats in February 2022. The memo identified these threats as efforts to “undermine public trust in government.”
Regarding both Covid and Ukraine, the most powerful forces in the country have repeatedly lied and misled the American public. They censor critics to protect their delicate narratives of fiction, and they attack others for the public’s waning trust in government.
Hersh’s article pierces through the hegemonic narrative; hopefully, exposing their lies and warmongering will disrupt their ploys for censorship and power.
William Spruance is a practicing attorney and a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center. The ideas expressed in the article are entirely his own and not necessarily those of his employer.
February 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Human rights, United States |
1 Comment
After I won my landmark “quarantine camp” lawsuit against Governor Hochul and her Department of Health a few months ago, people from around the globe started reaching out to me. Some wanted to simply send congratulations on a job well done, and thank me for giving them hope that this tyranny that somehow magically took hold contemporanously in countries around the world, could be defeated.
But many others wanted more than that. They wanted actual help. They wanted to know how they could fight back against the intense tyranny in their countries. So, I started doing interviews and presentations to groups based in the UK, South Africa, Canada, and Australia. I shared with them my legal theory behind my case, the separation of powers argument, and all about my courageous plaintiffs (Senator George Borrello, Assemblyman Chris Tague, Assemblyman [now Congressman] Mike Lawler, and a citizens’ group called Uniting NYS).
I told them about the other wonderful group of NYS Legislators that supported us with an Amicus Brief (Assemblymen Andy Goodell, Will Barclay and Joseph Giglio), and the battles that we fought and won along the way, as the Attorney General tried tactic after tactic to stall, derail and destroy our case. I shared all that I could with them in the hopes that it would assist them in their countries, as they pushed back against their government abuses.
At first I was taken aback by the response from those who reached out to me from abroad. It was hard for me to imagine that all those foreigners were watching our quarantine case so intently. Many told me they’d heard about it through “alternative media” sources, and had been quietly cheering me on and praying for a win. This made me realize that the utter helplessness brought on by the flagrant despotism of so many nations’ governments was eerily simultaneous – and equally frightening to all citizenry, no matter which country one called home.
Our quarantine camp lawsuit win against New York’s governor was almost akin to the proverbial shot heard around the world. Almost. Not quite. One big difference is that my lawsuit was (and still is today) heavily censored. Mainstream media barely covered it when we won, except for an article here and there in the New York Post and my interview on OAN Network. Epoch Times TV did a deep-dive interview with me on their wildly popular show, American Thought Leaders, but still yet, the Epoch Times is not legacy, mainstream media that continuously pours over the airwaves day in and day out.
Local and alternative media were covering it, but not mainstream media. I previously wrote an article about the censorship of my quarantine case which you can read here.
With my exposure to citizens from countries far and away, I was hearing tales of horrific happenings. Things that I simply could not believe governments would do their people, especially in countries that were supposedly “free”. And yet, here they were, telling me stories, sending me news articles or photos or actual video footage of atrocities I could not wrap my head around.
Some of the images are forever burned into my memory, no matter how hard I try to erase them. And at the end of each story that someone recanted, or each video that I watched, I thought to myself, “Thank God we won our quarantine camp lawsuit here in New York.”
I realized that we had not only stopped this complete totalitarianism from taking place in my home state, but we had likely stopped it from spreading across the nation to the point where quarantine camps would become the “new norm” as a way to (supposedly) stop the spread of a disease – or to punish someone the government didn’t like. (Remember, the languange in the reg we got struck down said the government did NOT have to prove you actually had a disease)! For more details on the reg and our lawsuit, go to www.UnitingNYS.com/lawsuit
Through my connection with Brownstone Institute, I was introduced to a wonderful and brave Australian who had spent two weeks in a quarantine camp in northern Australia. Let’s refer to her as “Jane”. I share with you now her first hand account that she shared with me of what happened and what it was like, replete with photographs from inside the camp.
At the time Jane was in the camp, Dan Andrews was (and still is) the Premier in Australia. The country had very strict COVID19 policies, which Jane points out, were constantly changing. Literally, the government would change a policy whilst people were flying mid-air, and upon landing at their destination, they’d be arrested because they now suddenly were in violation of a new COVID policy just issued!
The rule at the time was that no Australian was allowed to leave their state, unless you had a “legitimate reason” to do so, and in order to actually leave, you had to first quarantine for 2 weeks. Not in your home. No, don’t be silly! You had to quarantine in a facility that was run by the government. Some people got to choose which facility, others did not. There was a large camp in the Northern Territory near Darwin, and then there were many quarantine hotels scattered throughout the country.
Reportedly, the quarantine hotels were a total nightmare where you were shut into a room for 2 weeks, no exiting your room, no going outdoors allowed, and some rooms didn’t even have windows! But living in Melbourne, a large city in southest Australia, was just as bad. The government would only let you out of your home for ONE HOUR/day, with a mask on, and you couldn’t stray more than 5 kilometers from your house. You not only couldn’t leave the city, you couldn’t leave the country!
Forget having anyone visit – no guests were allowed in your home. The government set up a hotline so that Australians could call and report any of their neighbors who were disobeying the COVID mandates. The police would often check on the citizens to see if they were complying. They’d phone you, and if you didn’t respond within 15 minutes, they’d come knock on your door! The camp where Jane was quarantined seemed almost like a holiday, comparatively speaking. Well, not really.
So how it worked was that, if you had family or friends or business in another state, you had to first go to a government facility to quarantine for 2 weeks. Again, only if you had what the government deemed to be a legitimate reason. Jane needed to leave Melbourne, so she packed up her bags, booked an absurdly expensive flight to the Northern Territory, and off she went to the quarantine camp in Darwin for 2 weeks. Did she go “voluntarily”, of her own free will? That’s a very fine line of semantics there folks. Yes, she herself booked her flight and packed her bags to go, but it was only because the government told her that was the only way she could leave Melbourne. I don’t consider that free will. I hope you share my view.
The quarantine camp:
The camp had rows of trailer-like buildings that housed the inmates – I mean the there-of-their-own-free-will Australians. Jane was put into a unit that had a bedroom and a bathroom. Each unit had a small front stoop, sort of like a porch (see photo below). You were allowed to sit outside and talk to a neighbor, through a face mask of course, if you could stand the sweltering heat. Police were constantly patroling the camp, walking past the trailers, ensuring everyone was complying with the “social distancing” requirements and the forced masking, etc.
You weren’t allowed to do anything other than sit on your front stoop, or walk “laps” through the camp… as long as you stayed the proper distance from others, wore your mask, and didn’t try to do anything else. There was a swimming pool, but you were only allowed a dip in the pool twice during your 2 week stint there, and that was only if you were going to do some laps… no games allowed!
The food was terrible. No alcohol allowed. Cell phones and internet were allowed, at least when Jane was there. She said one woman tried to escape, but she was caught and then put into solitary confinement.
Now, sit down for this next part. The government restricted you from leaving your town, your state, your country, forced you into quarantine hotels or a camp if you were able to convince them that you had a real reason to cross a state border, treated you like a criminal, and get this – YOU had to pay for it!! And it was not cheap. The price tag was $2,500 for an individual, $5,000 for a family at the camp. The “hotels” apparently were more costly at $3,000 for the 2 weeks.
There were more details that Jane shared with me, but I cannot cover all here. At this point, I’m going to close out this story with a part of my conversation with Jane that really struck me. She could tell that I was flabbergasted by the things she was telling me. She could hear it in my voice, but also in the long pauses in between my questions after she would answer the litany of inquiries I was throwing at her.
My underlying astonishment was obvious… “How could your government do these things to its people?!”
Her response was immediate and direct, “We don’t have your Second Amendment. If we had, our government never would have treated us this way.”
Let that sink in for a minute.
Lawsuit update:
As I mentioned above, we defeated New York’s quarantine camp regulation when we won our lawsuit last July against Governor Hochul and her DOH. The Attorney General filed a notice of appeal, and had 6 months to appeal the win. Elections were November 8th. Not surprisingly, no appeal was filed, until…
The first week of January, just days before their 6 month deadline was up, the Attorney General asked for an additional 2 months to appeal our victory over quarantine camps! Unfortunately, the Court granted the request, despite our objection.
For more information about the case, the timeline, or if you’d like to support our lawsuit against the Governor and her quarantine camp regulation, go to www.UnitingNYS.com/lawsuit
Together, we win this!
Bobbie Anne is an attorney with 25 years experience in the private sector, who continues to practice law but also lectures in her field of expertise – government over-reach and improper regulation and assessments.
February 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Australia, Covid-19, Human rights, New York, United States |
1 Comment
The term ‘moral injury’ is a new one for me, as it probably is for most. It’s more commonly applied in a military context and only recently in health and social care, since 2020 to be precise. Indeed, the literature gently, knowingly or unknowingly, nudges us into believing that moral injury, reframed as occupational moral injury, isn’t a new concept but an inevitable consequence of working in an ethically challenging health and social care system.
Moral injury is understood as the damage done to an individual’s conscience or moral compass when they perpetrate, witness or fail to prevent acts that transgress their own moral beliefs, values or code of ethics. The term is thought to have originated after the Vietnam war when returning veterans and their carers struggled to make sense of high levels of anguish, anger and alienation that couldn’t be explained in terms of a mental health diagnosis such a post-traumatic stress disorder. It doesn’t take much stretch of the imagination to understand why veterans were morally injured but the Moral Injury Project at Syracuse University in New York cites examples such as using deadly force in combat and inadvertently causing harm or death to civilians and colleagues, giving orders which result in the injury or death of colleagues, failing to provide medical aid to civilians or colleagues and failing to report incidents such as sexual assaults.
When lockdowns were implemented in 2020, the health and social care workforce faced insurmountable and intolerable challenges when it was deemed unsafe in many situations to have close contact with fellow human beings who were in need of assistance. In essence, a workforce who function on the need for human contact could endanger life by simply doing their job. Subsequently, care and support was withdrawn or compromised through almost non-existent face-to-face interactions or time limited, with minimal physical contact if they took place at all.
Moral injury therefore makes sense in the context of health and social care. Staff were forced to deny medical and compassionate care to the injured and dying, leave adults and children in risky situations which in some cases led to death and injury, isolate frail older people from the life-giving company of family and friends and ignore or dismiss situations that previously justified urgent attention; all done while hiding smiles and humanity behind useless and potentially dangerous masks.
Moral injury during the pandemic can surely be applied across most professions and indeed the population: the police officer investigating a peaceful family gathering, the funeral director separating distressed relatives, the religious leader closing the door of a place of worship or the teacher who forced children to wear masks for hours on end. There were also the children who isolated their parents and parents who isolated their children, neighbours and community groups who withdrew essential help and support, and friends and family who got angry or fell out with those they disagreed with. Emotions and tensions ran high, leading me to think that many of us are morally injured to some degree or another. Is it any wonder that so many are struggling with poor mental health?
The growing number of articles drawing attention to moral injury, the most significant in the BMJ in July 2020 and a reference point for further articles, all focus on reassuring staff that a conflict of morals and the potential for injury is a normal consequence of doing what was necessary to prevent illness and death from Covid-19. At no point are the logic and morality of the rules called into question, which is surprising because the Moral Injury Project makes reference to two other potential causes of moral injury that are not referred to in recent literature:
‘Following orders that were illegal, immoral, and/or against the Rules of Engagement or Geneva Convention’;
‘A change in belief about the necessity or justification for war, during or after one’s service’.
As the realisation slowly dawns on the world that the inhumane actions which staff were forced to take were in fact unnecessary and based on flawed concepts with no robust evidence base, are we facing a rising tide of the morally injured? All measures were applied in the absence of risk/benefit analysis, despite common knowledge that blanket approaches to managing risk are likely to cause more damage than the presenting problem. Yet the whole population was terrified into believing we were all at equal risk of severe illness or death from a lethal virus, to which we had no natural immunity and was quietly spread from those with no symptoms, especially children. Lockdowns, school closures, testing, mask wearing, social distancing, mass vaccination programmes and subsequent passports were said to be necessary but in reality were unjustified and immoral. Dismissing the question of the necessity and morality of these measures and normalising moral injury as a natural consequence of a warlike situation places accountability solely on those who enforced the polices and vindicates those who created them.
A morally injured workforce is evidence that the response to Covid-19 was morally wrong. None of us know how we would have behaved in the shoes of the workers who enforced immoral policies that contravened their conscience and moral compass. However, we can be sure of one thing: many of the injured will need support to come to terms with the realisation they have inadvertently played a part in injuring some of the very people they intended to protect.
February 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights |
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The sub district court has ruled that the University of Groningen (RUG) may dismiss lecturer Tjeerd Andringa. An external investigation had been launched into the lecturer, alleging that he had used too many “one-sided alternative sources”.
Andringa was suspended early last year for allegedly spreading “conspiracy theories” at the university. The investigators argued that there was “an insufficient” safe learning environment in Andringa’s class.
The investigation committee “concluded that conspiracy theories played an inappropriate role in teaching”. The university subsequently decided to dismiss Andringa. He took the matter to court, but lost.
The kakistocracy
Andringa told students that “alternative media cover a lot more topics”. He also commented on their quality: “If you know how to find them, you will see that they are also of a much better quality.”
What are these so-called “conspiracy theories”? For example, he argued that intelligence agencies most likely organise sex parties with children to recruit new members for the kakistocracy, a form of government by the worst, least fit or unscrupulous citizens.
This, he said, is evidenced in part by the fact that intelligence agencies have close ties with terror groups and paedophile networks. “If you are looking for the most unscrupulous people, sex parties with children are an excellent selection mechanism.”
Attacks on their own populations
He also said he did not believe the official narrative about the September 11, 2001 attacks. “Just take Building 7, which was not hit by a plane, and yet collapsed. Twenty minutes before Building 7 collapsed, a BBC correspondent was already confirming it on TV, with the then still proudly erect building clearly visible in the background.”
He said in an interview with Novini that governments do often attack their own people in order to make their citizens fearful and docile. “What is certain is that secret organisations have carried out attacks on their own population. Operation Gladio is a clear example.”
Basing wars on lies, like the one against Iraq, he said, was typical of a kakistocracy.
Most citizens aren’t interested in such knowledge, however. “That’s because through the mainstream media they don’t come into contact with these kinds of ideas very much, if at all. People don’t want to know either. People who cannot criticise the system they are part of, cannot bear the thought of contributing to a kakistocracy.”
February 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Full Spectrum Dominance | University of Groningen |
2 Comments
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto © Michal Cizek / AFP
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto speaks to journalists in Prague, Czech Republic, on August 30, 2022. © Michal Cizek / AFP
The European Union’s calls to keep supporting Ukraine with arms shipments will only prolong the conflict with Russia, the Hungarian foreign minister said on Sunday.
Speaking to radio Kossuth, Peter Szijjarto commented on recent remarks by the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, who pushed for fighter jets and long-range weapons to be sent to Kiev. According to the minister, EU lawmakers’ decisions on Ukraine “have generally caused damage to Europe,” and further weapons deliveries will only worsen the hostilities.
He went on to blast the EU legislature, claiming that its “credibility is practically zero.” Szijjarto pointed to a recent graft scandal as proof that the EU parliament is “one of the most corrupt organizations in the world.”
He was referring to the recent arrest of the parliament’s former vice president, Eva Kaili, who has been charged with taking bribes from Qatar in exchange for illegally lobbying the interests of the Gulf state.
Szijjarto noted that in Western countries, war rhetoric sounds “incomparably louder than the rhetoric of peace,” while nations outside “the transatlantic bubble” tend to prefer peace to a deadly conflict.
The minister went on to question the West’s anti-Russia sanctions. He argued that they have failed to force Moscow to end the conflict, while Europe’s economy has “faced incredible difficulties,” and that “the tenth sanctions package will only be suitable for causing further damage to us Europeans, similar to the previous nine ones.”
Since the start of large-scale hostilities in Ukraine almost a year ago, Hungary, which is heavily dependent on Russian energy, has been critical of Western sanctions against Moscow. It has also refused to support Kiev with weapons, or allow arms transfers across its border with Ukraine.
February 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics, Militarism | European Union, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine |
6 Comments
The chairman of the AfD parliamentary group, Tino Chrupalla, has called for investigative committees to be set up in connection with the attack on the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Both the Bundestag and the EU Parliament must investigate whether the US and Norway had actively participated in blowing up the pipelines, he said.
The well-known US investigative reporter Seymour Hersh quoted insider sources involved in the planning of the attack on German and European infrastructure.
Chrupalla called for an investigation into the claims: “The suspicions of the Pulitzer Prize winner must be investigated.” All the serious questions must now be “answered by committees of inquiry”. The Bundestag has “a right to know what knowledge the federal government had”.
The AfD boss underscored that such an inquiry should establish whether government officials were involved in the planning. “Were government officials privy to the planning of the attack?”
Biden, but also Scholz, Greens exposed
According to Hersh, after some “wobbling” Olaf Scholz decided to be on the American team. He was referring to a meeting between the German Chancellor and US President Joe Biden on February 7 last year. At the joint press conference, the American head of state said about the then imminent war in Ukraine: “If Russia invades, there will be no more Nord Stream 2. We will put an end to this.”
LNG deliveries from the US have increased by 143 percent from the previous year which has been a catastrophe for the climate, critics argue. “The biggest hypocrisy in decoupling Europe from Russian oil and gas supplies concerns environmental policy. The production and transport of LNG from the USA results in a CO2 footprint that is twice as large as that of conventional Russian gas,” according to Le Monde Diplomatique.
The sabotage act to enforce the “rules-based international order”, furthermore triggered a massive release of methane causing major damage to the environment, to marine life, including to dolphins, whales and plants. This fact has been of no interest to various EU Green party supporters nor to Greta Thunberg.
The AfD parliamentary group leader pointed out that the US had attacked an ally: “Has the leading power of NATO carried out an attack on our country’s vital critical infrastructure in European waters?” If so, one would have to question whether the alliance guarantees security in Europe or rather endangers it. The withdrawal of all US troops should be the consequence.”
According to Chrupalla, all the findings of national authorities should be laid out before the European Parliament: “The European states must not put up with such violent interference. They are even less allowed to participate in it.”
Norway profits from German loss
Until Wednesday, the investigative journalist had always been known as “a legend” in leading German media screeds – as a famous sleuth successfully uncovering numerous American state crimes. Since his [Nord Stream] revelations, he has become “controversial” however.
The treatment of the Hersh revelations in German mainstream media – either totally ignoring them or blaming the Kremlin – will most probably give the already low credibility of the “leading outlets” their final deathblow.
Moreover, it appears that Germany’s most trusted “ally” had no difficulty in persuading Norway as a member of the European “community of values” to take part in a criminal endeavour in order to sell its energy exports to Germany much more profitably.
But in order to do so, Norway became actively involved in an act of terrorism, breach of international law, as well as a breach of the United Nations Charter.
When US Special Forces covert actions in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Honduras included mining the coast of Nicaragua to stop locals from fishing and other marine activities, the case was successfully brought to the International Court of Justice in June 1986. This means that the International Court of Justice, which was established by the UN Charter, has jurisdiction in this case, legal scholars believe.
Following the sabotage, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden launched separate inquiries into the attack, further highlighting the disunity of EU members. Sweden was reportedly the first to leave the planned joint investigation team; Denmark followed suit. To date, no European country has made its findings public.
Hersh’s revelations are especially a challenge for conservatives and right-wing Atlanticists. Because if Hersh’s comprehensive account of the events, which is based on high-ranking sources in Washington, is correct, then “there can be no other consequence than the demand for the withdrawal of all American troops and military bases from Germany,” according to Wolfgang Hübner, a long-standing city councilor and parliamentary group leader of the Bürger für Frankfurt (BFF).
Legal hurdles for team Biden
The executive branch under Biden may have unilaterally decided to wage war on Germany, but there are many legal problems associated with their project, such as the failure to inform Congress or even the powerful congressional Gang of Eight.
According to Hersch, the US Navy performed the destruction of a foreign government’s property at the direction of President Biden. Claiming that they were just following orders would not go far in court, since bypassing Congress is evidently illegal.
Specifically, the Gang of Eight includes the leaders of each of the two parties from both the US Senate and House of Representatives, and the chairs and ranking minority members of both the Senate Committee and House Committee for intelligence as set forth by 50 U.S.C. § 3093(c)(2).
It is also telling that US military service chiefs did not raise the alarm when the Biden team decided to blow up Nord Stream.
Well before Hersch’s report, Norwegian investigative reporter, Alf R Jacobsen, had written a detailed analysis of the Nord Stream sabotage. In October 2022, Jacobsen challenged the idea of Russia’s involvement in the blasts. According to him, Hersh’s piece is credible.
February 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, False Flag Terrorism, War Crimes | Germany, NATO, Norway, United States |
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US officials are basically admitting that they were behind the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, which was perpetrated to prevent rapprochement between Moscow and Berlin, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.
“The US decided that we [Russia] have been cooperating too well with Germany over the past 20 or 30 years; or rather, the Germans cooperated with us too well,” he said in an interview published on the Foreign Ministry’s website on Sunday.
The “powerful alliance” based on Russian energy resources and German technology “began to threaten the monopoly position of many American corporations,” Lavrov explained.
So, Washington decided to destroy this alliance between Moscow and Berlin, and did it “literally” by attacking the pipelines, which were built to deliver Russian gas to Europe through Germany, he added.
“American officials are basically admitting that the explosions that occurred at Nord Stream 1 and 2 were their doing. They even speak about it with joy,” the foreign minister stated.
Lavrov was likely referring to a confession made by US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland during a Senate hearing in late January. “I am, and I think the administration is, very gratified to know that Nord Stream 2 is now… a hunk of metal at the bottom of the sea,” she said at that time.
“The vileness of Western politicians is well known,” Lavrov continued, suggesting that “the plan, which is now being implemented through ‘inciting’ Ukraine against Russia and waging a war by the entire West against Russia by means of Ukraine, is to a large extent aimed at preventing a new rapprochement between Germany and Russia.”
The comments by Russia’s top diplomat come just days after iconic American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh released a bombshell report, blaming Washington for sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines last year.
According to an informed source who talked to Hersh, explosives were planted at the pipelines in the Baltic Sea back in June 2022 by US Navy divers under the guise of a NATO exercise. They were detonated in late September, rendering the key European energy infrastructure inoperable.
US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson denied the report by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, calling it “utterly false and complete fiction.” No one among high-ranking American officials has even commented on the accusations made by Hersh.
For months, the Russian authorities have been pointing to the fact that the only side to benefit from the destruction of Nord Stream was the US, which has seen supplies of its more expensive liquefied natural gas to Europe increase massively since the explosions.
February 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, War Crimes | European Union, Russia, United States |
5 Comments
Up to one fifth of all warming reported across the planet by around 20,000 weather stations is invalid due to corruption from non-climatic data. This finding is the latest revelation from two atmospheric scientists seeking to measure the effect of human-caused urban heat on global surface temperature measurements. The news is sensational because it depresses further the major slowdown in warming observed since around 1998. With the global temperature warming by little more than 0.1°C over the last two decades, it makes claims of 4°C warming by the end of the century seem even more implausible.
The latest finding arises from the ongoing work of Dr. Roy Spencer and Professor John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville. The two scientists looked at the 19,885 temperature stations in the Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN) distributed around the world from latitudes 20N to 82.5N. They found that over the last 40 years, virtually all of them had experienced growth associated with human settlement. The global work is said to be at an early stage, but “very preliminary calculations” are said to suggest that urban heat averaged across all stations is about 10-20% of GHCN trends.
Major global temperature compilers such as the U.S.-based National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) claim to remove urban heat effects by homogenisation techniques, but the scientists say this is unlikely. Abrupt changes in station data can be removed, but they cannot correct “for any sources of slowly increasing spurious warming”. In their latest work, the scientists undertake a critical investigation of NOAA’s homogenisation procedure and astonishingly conclude it is on average “spuriously warming station temperature data trends when it should be cooling them”. The detailed reasons are given in the latest note published by Spencer, where he asks why NOAA adjustments are going in the wrong way? “To say the least, I find these results …. Curious,” he says.
The GHCN forms the core of all the major global surface temperature datasets including the Met Office’s HadCRUT. In the recent past, all these datasets have been subject to considerable upwards retrospective adjustments, and these have largely removed the pauses and slowdown seen over the last two decades. This has enabled further ‘record’ high temperatures to be declared, and the continued Net Zero-helpful promotion of improbable multi-centigrade warming in the near future. Last month, NOAA claimed that the 10 warmest years on record have all occurred since 2010.
In a recently published paper, Nicola Scafetta, a climate research scientist at the University of Naples, noted that the Met Office HadCRUT database had recorded warming of 0.03°C per decade during the hiatus years of 2000-2014. In 2013, Scafetta noted that HadCRUT version 4 increased the warming to 0.08°C per decade. HadCRUT5 further adjusted the 2000-14 figure to supply warming of 0.14°C per decade. A period of pause – a pause that the Met Office actually wrote about – was converted to strong warming. Needless to say, accurate satellite temperature data shows the first pause, along with a current one that is over eight years long.
In their ground-breaking work, Spencer and Christy use a satellite dataset of urbanisation called ‘Built Up’ to determine the average effect that urbanisation has had on surface temperatures. Urbanisation differences were compared to temperature changes from closely-spaced weather stations. Earlier findings suggested that in the last 50 years, there was a remarkable 50% less warming across the eastern United States. Again the work is preliminary and the scientists suggest it is likely to be at the upper limit of de-urbanisation adjustments. Nevertheless, there were many surprises, not least in data from airports. These places contribute many readings to global datasets, but massive distortions were found. One of the worst examples was Orlando International Airport where the warming was measured at 0.3°C per decade. This fell to a de-urbanised figure of just 0.07°C.
In fact, NOAA does make a serious attempt to track U.S. temperatures away from any urban or human corruptions. A rarely-publicised database is compiled from 114 nationwide stations designed to provide continuous recordings well away from any urban heat distortions. The measurements started in 2005, and to date show little if any warming. It is called the US Climate Refence Network, and the latest graph is posted below.
Intriguingly, the scientists are finding that the strongest urban heating occurs at near-rural sites. Others have noted that the urban heat effect is strongly non-linear with, for example, a 2% increase in urbanisation at rural sites producing much more warming than a similar rise at an urban site. “This means that a climate monitoring dataset using mostly rural stations is not immune from spurious warming from creeping urbanisation, unless there has been absolutely zero growth,” they commented.
There is increasing evidence that surface databases that supply a global temperature are too inaccurate to rely on. Yet they provide bedrock data for collectivists to argue that the climate is collapsing and only a strict political re-ordering of society along Net Zero lines will save the planet from Armageddon. Satellite readings are widely used in climate science but their temperature findings are largely ignored in favour of adjusted and corrupted surface measurements. As regular readers will recall, Dr Spencer is a former NASA scientist and has plotted temperature data from satellites for over 40 years. Last year his blog page providing current monthly readings was ‘demonitised’ by Google Adsense on the grounds of “unreliable and harmful claims”.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
February 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science |
1 Comment
It’s time to courageously stand up to the self-serving politicians, corporate media, and Big Tech who are weaponizing our tax-payer funded institutions against us, undermining our freedom and democracy. Our love for America can give us the strength to win this battle.
Press TV – February 11, 2023
Former Democratic US Representative Tulsi Gabbard has said Hillary Clinton is a “dangerous character” who is “envious” of President Joe Biden because she believes Biden is “channeling her warmongering ways.”
Gabbard made the remarks following the ex-secretary of state’s recent visit to India where she visited salt pan workers in Gujarat where and announced a $50-million initiative aimed at empowering women and communities to fight against climate change.
Gabbard told Fox News that the trip served little purpose and said that Clinton’s visit to drum up support for alternative clean energy shows that she still covets diplomatic authority and is “envious” of Biden’s presidency.
“Her desire to be commander-in-chief that she’s had for a very long time has nothing to do with ensuring the safety and security of the American people,” Gabbard said. “It has everything to do with the fact that if there’s a war to be fought, she wants to be the one with her finger on that proverbial trigger.”
She added that she believes Biden to be “channeling her warmongering ways.”
Clinton has previously called Gabbard a “Russian asset,” which incited the former Hawaii Democrat to launch a defamation lawsuit.
Gabbard also stated that Clinton’s visit to India did nothing to address India’s more pressing issues and that its only purpose was to increase her own public profile.
“This is what makes her such a dangerous character,” Gabbard said. “She feels that she’s not accountable to anyone because she’s not suffering those consequences.”
The 42-year-old Gabbard served as a congresswoman in the US House of Representatives between 2013 and 2021, and as vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) between 2013 and 2016. She quit DNC’s vice chairwomanship to protest the Democratic Party’s presidential primary process, blaming then-DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schulz for rigging the vote in favor of former Obama secretary of state Hillary Clinton against Vermont’s progressive Senator Bernie Sanders.
She quit the Democratic Party in October last year, blasting its leadership for being an “elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.”
Gabbard said that today’s Democratic Party is “under the complete control of an elitist cabal of warmongers.”
“I can no longer remain in today’s Democratic Party,” she tweeted.
Gabbard also served two tours of war in the Middle East, including a tour in Iraq as a member of the Hawaii National Guard, and ran for president in 2020, where her evisceration of former California Attorney General – and current US Vice President — Kamala Harris by pointing to the latter’s record of incarcerating African Americans on petty drug offenses forced Harris to drop out of the presidential race before any primaries or caucuses were held.
She has long been among the top critics of US military interventions across the globe. She traveled to Syria in 2017 and censured Washington’s attempts at regime change there, and also slammed US military aid for Ukraine, pointing to the risk of the conflict escalating into a Third World War with Russia.
Gabbard has called Clinton the “embodiment of corruption” and “the queen of warmongers.”
Gabbard, an Iraq war veteran, has repeatedly spoken against neoconservative war hawks with a history of supporting regime change wars. On the contrary, Clinton has supported America’s imperialist wars.
American writer Stephen Lendman once said Clinton is “a war goddess” who has supported all of the United States’s “imperial wars from Afghanistan, to Iraq, to Libya, to Syria.”
February 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Video | Hillary Clinton, Human rights, Tulsi Gabbard, United States |
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