‘US, Not China, Pouring Weapons Into Ukraine’, Says Chinese Foreign Ministry
By Wyatt Reed – Sputnik – 21.02.2023
With the US accusing China of looking into selling weapons to the Russian military, China’s foreign ministry says that – having pumped tens of billions in heavy weapons to Ukrainian militants – Washington is “not qualified” to lecture Beijing about international arms trafficking.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has struck back at Washington for suggesting China is evaluating the possibility of supplying Russia with weapons, saying Monday that it’s the American government pumping weapons into the conflict zone – not China’s.
“It is the US, not China, that has been consistently pouring weapons into the battlefield,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said in a press briefing Monday.
Over the weekend, several high-level US officials began to suggest they had reason to believe that China was considering sending military supplies to Moscow.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken accused China on Saturday of “considering providing lethal support to Russia” in what he labeled Moscow’s “aggression against Ukraine.” He said that if his allegation turned out to be true, it “would have serious consequences in our relationship” with China.
Biden’s ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, echoed the threat Sunday, telling CNN that China would be crossing a “red line” if it decided to provide Russia with lethal aid.
But Wang said Monday that the US is “not qualified” to issue such ultimatums. He told reporters that the rest of the world knows who’s really to blame for the hostilities in Ukraine, and called on the Biden administration to publicly admit that it’s fanned the flames of the ongoing conflict.
“The international community is fully aware who is calling for dialogue and striving for peace, and who is fanning the flames and stoking confrontation,” Wang said.
Unlike Washington, he noted that Beijing has been “supporting talks for peace” since the beginning of the Ukraine conflict, adding “we urge the US side to seriously reflect on the role it has played, do something to actually help de-escalate the situation and promote peace talks, and stop deflecting the blame and spreading disinformation.”
The back-and-forth comes after Wang Yi, China’s highest ranked diplomat, defended his country’s posture towards Russian military operations before an audience of European officials during Saturday’s Munich Security Conference.
“We do not add fuel to the fire, and we’re against reaping benefits from this crisis,” Wang said.
“Some forces might not want to see peace talks materialize,” Wang noted, in what was widely viewed as a thinly-veiled jab at the US government.
“They don’t care about the life and death of Ukrainians, nor the harm on Europe,” Wang suggested, adding “they might have strategic goals larger than Ukraine itself.”
132 Canadian doctors have died suddenly or unexpectedly since COVID-19 vaccine rollout (Part 2/2)
By Dr. William Makis MD | COVID Intel | February 18, 2023
Overall Canadian physician mortality in 2022 was 53% higher than 2019, however, as with all excess mortality data in highly COVID-19 vaccinated jurisdictions, this mortality is heavily skewed towards the younger age groups, with the youngest doctors – medical students or medical residents under age 30 dying at a 900% higher rate in 2022, compared to the 2019/2020 average.
2021 Sudden and unexpected Canadian doctor deaths:
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Michael for the tremendous work and hundreds of hours spent compiling this important data from official medical sources: (Canadian Medical Association, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, Provincial Medical Associations, Canadian Medical University Alumni Associations, Provincial Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, and online obituary aggregators), as well as Sonja, VA and everyone else who provided valuable contributions over time.
This data has been available to the Canadian Medical Association as well as the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada.
132 Canadian doctors have died suddenly or unexpectedly since COVID-19 vaccine rollout (Part 1/2)
By Dr. William Makis MD | COVID Intel | February 18, 2023
In 2021, Canadian doctors were mandated to be fully COVID-19 vaccinated, in order to keep their jobs. Very few escaped these mandates. No exemptions given.
Since the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines in December 2020, a total of 132 actively practicing Canadian doctors under age 70 have died suddenly or unexpectedly.
Canadian physician mortality in 2022 was 53% higher than 2019, based on the largest database of its kind assembled diligently by our team (a total of 2250 doctor deaths documented, spanning the years 2019-2023). This data is solid.
I have sent a third letter to the Canadian Medical Association (“CMA”) about these sudden deaths. To date, CMA has refused to respond. CMA fully supported unscientific and unethical COVID-19 vaccine mandates that were forced on their own physician members. Now this Ottawa-based bureaucracy ignores the damage done.
2022/23 Sudden and unexpected Canadian doctor deaths:
ADL report advocates for deplatforming at website infrastructure level
By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | February 20, 2023
A new report by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said pressuring online platforms and other internet services to remove those it deems to be far-right extremists is effective in limiting their reach. The report was authored by the ADL’s Center for Technology and Society Belfer fellow Megan Squire.
In preparing the report, Squire analyzed four deplatformed websites, including forum website The Donald, website The Daily Stormer, forum 8chan, and political commentator Nick Fuentes.
Squire compared the individuals and sites’ popularity before and after they were deplatformed, saying the objective is limiting the spread of hateful ideology, not cutting traffic. And according to Squire, deplatforming is an effective way of achieving that goal.
“Deplatforming websites—removing infrastructure services they need to operate such as website hosting—can reduce the spread and reach of extremism and hate online,” she wrote.
Deplatforming also financially affects content creators in other ways. For instance, Fuentes was removed from YouTube and forced to incur the cost of hosting his content on his website. On YouTube, he hosted the content for free and was able to monetize the content. Currently, “he has to run all of that infrastructure himself. He has to find the developers, he has to maintain the website, he has to pay for all that bandwidth,” Squire said.
However, the content creators in Squire’s report have survived even after deplatforming. Others have disappeared.
Squire notes that while deplatforming “works,” the creators of these websites and platforms often “bounce back because there is someone out there that will replatform them.”
Cloudflare, an internet infrastructure and security company, last year acknowledged in its Q3 2022 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that its departure from its neutral position, including the recent blocking of the Kiwi Farms online forum, has resulted in significant negative feedback and a loss of potential customers.
The company has recognized that taking actions against its customers, including banning them from using its products, may cause harm to its brand and reputation. Publicly traded companies such as Cloudflare are obligated to file quarterly reports, which include a section on risk factors.
Yemeni officials assess damage to ancient sites bombed by Saudi-led coalition
The Cradle | February 20, 2023
The head of Yemen’s General Authority for Antiquities, Manuscripts, and Museums, Dr. Obbad bin Ali Al-Hayyal, visited several historical and archeological sites in the provinces of Marib and Jawf on 18 February to assess the damages caused to them by the Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, SABA news agency reported.
Hayyal and his team visited the ancient city of Baraqish in Marib’s Mazjar district, the Rusf Temple in Al-Jawf, and several other archeological sites.
According to SABA, they received briefings from local authorities on the damages to ancient columns, inscriptions, and structures due to “Saudi and Emirati warplanes,” as well as the “looting and theft” of antiquities and artifacts by coalition forces from museums across the country.
During the visit, Hayyal stressed the importance of “integrating official and popular efforts” to protect these sites from ‘vandalism and looting.’
Since the start of the Saudi-led war against Yemen in 2015, coalition airstrikes have posed a significant threat to the country’s archeological sites and historical monuments.
In May 2015, coalition airstrikes struck the ancient Sabaean ruins of the Great Marib Dam, which date back to the seventh century BC.
That year, the Saudi-led coalition bombarded the ruins of the ancient city of Baraqish, several ancient temples, and an entire museum filled with countless precious artifacts – which was “reduced to piles of shattered stone,” according to a 2015 report by US media outlet The Intercept.
The Saudi-led bombing also decimated sections of the capital Sanaa’s Old City, which is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site and dates back 2,500 years.
Several ancient buildings and structures have since collapsed from weakened foundations. Until October 2019, over 237 archeological sites had been directly targeted by the coalition in what has been described as a systematic campaign aimed at deliberately erasing Yemeni culture and history.
Aside from bombing, several ancient sites and museums have been looted and stripped of valuable artifacts by UAE-backed mercenary groups, whose ranks are filled with ISIS and Al-Qaeda militants.
In 2019, a member of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, Mohammad Ali al-Houthi, said about UAE-backed groups: “The mercenaries are antiquity thieves. Where did the antiquities of the Marib Museum go? … Where are the monuments from the rest of the museums in the occupied governorates? … The mercenaries are committing historical, social, and cultural crimes.”
Saudi Arabia is well-known for its destruction of heritage, particularly within its borders, where many of the ancient cities, towns, and sites dating back to the birth of Islam have been wiped out as part of a campaign motivated by the kingdom’s Wahhabi ideology.
Leaked files reveal Britain’s ambulances aided terrorists in war-torn Syria
By Kit Klarenberg | Press TV | February 20, 2023
On February 6, Syria and Turkey were rocked by devastating back-to-back earthquakes. Ever since, people in these countries and the region have been subjected to a particularly merciless – yet illuminating – crash course in Western double standards on humanitarian aid.
While aid and assistance have flowed into Istanbul and Damascus from all neighbors, initially many governments were reticent to dispatch anything at all to Syria, because US and EU sanctions made it illegal for planes to land in its airports.
It meant that those eager to provide humanitarian assistance could not dispatch it, for fear of dire repercussions. Such concerns were well-founded. Washington enforces sanctions with an iron fist, and any individual or state breaching them faces severe penalties.
Giving in to intense global public pressure, the US Treasury on February 10 enacted a 180-day waiver on certain sanctions imposed on Syria, to allow for vital earthquake relief to reach the country.
Still, neither Washington nor its constellation of international allies has provided any meaningful assistance to Damascus whatsoever, despite the death toll in the country grimly ratcheting daily.
Meanwhile, Israeli regime officials expressed the readiness to bomb Iranian aid deliveries arriving by land. And, in the end, they ended up bombing the people still recovering from the shock of a colossal human tragedy.
Complicating matters further, terrorist groups that still occupy portions of Syrian territories, such as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in the northwest, are blocking the government’s attempts to distribute provisions, a spokesperson for HTS in Idlib telling Reuters no shipments would be permitted to pass its checkpoints, on the basis, “we won’t allow the regime to take advantage of the situation to show they are helping.”
These pockets crisscross the country, an enduring and shameful legacy of the West’s failed decade-long dirty war against Damascus.
Almost never acknowledged by the mainstream media, their continued presence is particularly relevant to consider now, for they are relics of a time when the Western world was only too eager to invest vast sums to flood Syria with medical aid, albeit in service of “regime change”.
Healthcare as psychological warfare
In August 2016, a remarkable and never-before-disclosed covert British intelligence operation began near Amman, Jordan.
At a secret training site operated by London and Washington, British Foreign Office contractor Torchlight – which this journalist has repeatedly exposed for assisting Britain’s infiltration of security and spying agencies across West Asia – extensively tutored violent groups funded and armed by the spy agencies CIA and MI6 in providing medical assistance to terrorists and mercenaries.
Dubbed “MAO CASEVAC” (Moderate Armed Opposition Casualty Evacuation), the program ran the gamut from practical training for paramedics to the provision of multiple ambulances purchased from Qatar, advanced medical technology, elaborate communications systems to ensure the safe and timely transfer of injured “rebels” from the frontline, and the creation and maintenance of dedicated facilities to treat the wounded, at a cost of millions.
Internal documents related to the effort note that at the time it was launched, injured fighters relied “on inadequately prepared and supported self-help at the point of injury, followed by ad hoc systems and capabilities to evacuate and treat them in a hostile and austere environment,” with an overwhelming reliance on civilian hospitals and healthcare infrastructure.
Moreover, CIA and MI6-supported terrorist groups lacked “dedicated doctors”, and medical professionals locally, while willing to treat anyone whatever their ailments, remained “keen to maintain their independence” lest they be accused of serving as in-house doctors for armed actors.
These practitioners even lacked high-tech equipment such as scanners for detecting internal bleeding, and access to resources such as blood products.
So it was Torchlight that set about training 200 opposition actors every year for three years in all conceivable medical disciplines and equipping them accordingly.
While London was careful not to publicize the initiative’s existence in any way, its results were intended to be broadcast widely locally and internationally – for MAO CASEVAC’s objectives were as practical as they were psychological.
It was hoped that on top of saving lives and protecting the welfare of terrorists, their “morale and motivation” would all “be enhanced”, while “purpose, ethos and culture” would be instilled in them:
“If the MAO is able to provide this support then fighters will have greater confidence that they can be provided for in case of injury. Consequently, this will improve motivation, a sense of welfare, and the credibility of MAO troops, as well as reduce battlefield losses. This will add credibility to the MAO.”
As such, MAO CASEVAC was but one component of Britain’s wide-ranging information warfare campaign throughout the Syrian dirty war, designed to destabilize the democratically-elected government of Bashar al-Assad, while rebranding the murderous militant groups rampaging across the country as a “moderate” alternative. Its founding documents make these objectives very clear.
Noting that the British government sought to “foster a negotiated political transition” in Syria, these papers openly state that MAO CASEVAC’s aim was to “generate pressure” on the Assad government.
This was predicated on the notion that “regime change” required “an empowered opposition on the ground,” capable of convincing locals, Western citizens and international bodies that they were courageous freedom fighters on a righteous mission, rather than a ragtag bunch of crazed fundamentalists complicit in countless hideous atrocities, wholly dependent on foreign backing to survive in every way.
Of course, if the opposition could demonstrate to the world they were highly skilled in saving lives, it would go some way to cementing the perception of a professional, humanitarian-orientated force.
This was precisely the rationale behind the creation of the White Helmets – a terrorist group masquerading as a civil defense force – by the British intelligence agency.
‘Risk of ricochet’
Another indication of MAO CASEVAC’s darker nature is provided in Torchlight documents on risks related to its operation.
The training area in Jordan, provided to the company by British intelligence “at no cost to the project,” offered “accommodation, ablution, dining, classrooms, driving tracks, outside rural environment areas, and open space for equipment storage.”
However, the milieu was far from idyllic – medics would be trained alongside opposition fighters learning the art of killing, including the use of AK47s and other weaponry. The proximity between the two programs was such, Torchlight repeatedly warned of the “physical security risk” posed to their students by the site’s dual purpose:
“Another training conducted on the site involves live firing. Consequently, third-party personnel are in possession of weapons and live ammunition on the camp in addition to the Jordanian Security Personnel on site. Risk of ricocheting from the live firing ranges onto the driving range and wider area behind. There is likely to be an overlap of live firing and driving courses [emphasis added].”
If that wasn’t enough, Torchlight also forecast the threat of a “disaffected student” or Jordanian security operative “in possession of a weapon and ammunition” carrying out an armed attack on its staff and trainees to be “high” risk.
Absent was any consideration of students joining the al-Nusra Front and Daesh Takfiri group, and equipment being one way or another appropriated by these terrorist groups, although such considerations are writ large in leaked Foreign Office risk assessments of the fighter training program, which was likewise overseen by British intelligence cutouts.
However, the UK Foreign Office, which funded the program to the tune of $21 million over the same timeframe as MAO CASEVAC, with up to 600 fighters trained annually as a result, was intensely relaxed about those prospects. Any loss of equipment was to be “tolerated” to “a reasonable degree.”
The same was true of AJACS, a controversial British intelligence “aid” project that created the Free Syrian Police, which was run in coordination with Nour al-Din al-Zinki, a CIA-backed entity linked to heinous crimes against humanity, including the videotaped beheading of a Palestinian teenager in 2016.
The implementing contractor of that effort, the notorious Adam Smith International, simply didn’t consider it “cost-effective” to prevent their participation.
All of this begs the question of whether the real objective behind MAO CASEVAC and other interrelated British intelligence operations was to insidiously bolster and equip the most violent, deranged elements on the ground in Syria.
At the very least, it’s evident that whatever anxieties London may harbor today about humanitarian aid making its way to earthquake-hit Syria, an enemy state in dire need of respite, hasn’t historically applied to terrorist groups that further its interests in the country.
This may explain why they remain active there so long after the dirty war theoretically ended.
Iran reacts to uranium claim
RT | February 20, 2023
Tehran has rejected as misleading a Bloomberg report, which claimed that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was investigating how the country enriched uranium “to levels just below that needed for a nuclear weapon.”
The news agency cited two anonymous diplomats, who alleged that the UN nuclear watchdog found uranium of 84% purity, or “just 6% below what’s needed for a weapon” in Iran, Bloomberg explained in its article, published on Sunday.
Responding on Monday, Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said the piece was “slander and a distortion of the facts”.
“The presence of uranium particles above 60% during the enrichment process does not mean enrichment above 60% level,” he told IRNA news agency, claiming that in publishing the story, Bloomberg was serving as a tool of anti-Iran pressure.
Bloomberg did, however, acknowledge the possibility that the sample was found after unintended accumulation in an enrichment centrifuge cascade.
The IAEA has commented on the news by stating that it was “discussing with Iran the results of recent Agency verification activities” and would report the outcome to its board of governors when appropriate.
Iran agreed to impose restrictions on its nuclear industry, including enrichment activities, under a 2015 deal with world powers. The agreement was torpedoed by US President Donald Trump, who pulled out in 2018 to pursue a so-called “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions.
Iran eventually started reneging on its commitments, and announced it was enriching uranium to 60% purity at its Natanz facility in 2021 and at the Fordo site in 2022.
The nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was touted as a way to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, an ambition that Tehran denies having.
Biden’s Visit To Kiev Is “Copium” To Distract The West From Disadvantageous Developments
By Andrew Korybko | February 20, 2023
The whole reason why the Mainstream Media and allied accounts on social media are overdosing on this cheap “copium” is because they know very well that tougher days are ahead for their side considering NATO’s military-industrial crisis, the sanctions’ failure, and Russia’s likely capture of Artyomovsk/“Bakhmut”. Kiev’s supporters urgently need a proverbial shot in the arm to keep their morale alive amidst the series of impending setbacks that are poised to afflict the Golden Billion’s proxies in the coming future.
The term “copium” refers to an artificially manufactured narrative aimed at distracting a targeted audience from a disadvantageous development by convincing them that “everything is going according to plan”, which is why it’s a fitting description of the purpose behind Biden’s surprise visit to Kiev. His trip occurred against the context of the NATO chief finally admitting his bloc’s military-industrial crisis that risks depriving its Ukrainian vassals of the armed support they need to continue this proxy war.
Just the day before Biden arrived, Zelensky disclosed in an interview with Italian media that his forces might abandon Artyomovsk/“Bakhmut” if their casualties continue to climb, which represents a decisive reversal of the “official narrative” hitherto claiming that they’ll cling to it no matter the cost. On the topic of decisive narrative shifts, American and Polish officials spent the past month informing everyone that Kiev’s victory is no longer “inevitable”, which was meant to prepare them for impending setbacks.
Between the initiation of that newfound narrative trend and Biden’s trip, the New York Times reported that the West’s anti-Russian sanctions failed, after which Bloomberg proved that India had been working as the middleman for indirectly facilitating Russia’s oil exports to the West. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov’s two practically back-to-back trips to Africa in recent weeks also confirmed that his country is far from isolated since it enjoys that geostrategic continent’s support.
The sequence of events that began at the start of this year were obviously disadvantageous for the US-led West’s Golden Billion since they discredited everything that this de facto New Cold War bloc’s perception managers had claimed up until that point. Russia continues gradually gaining ground in Donbass, neither its economy nor military collapsed under sanctions, and the global systemic transition to multipolarity has only accelerated since the start of its special operation a year ago.
It therefore makes perfect sense why the US was so desperate for a distraction, hence Biden’s visit to Kiev, which is being spun by the Mainstream Media (MSM) as supposedly representing one of the most symbolic moments since Russia was forced to initiate the latest phase of the Ukrainian Conflict. Nothing of tangible significance was achieved during his trip, though, and the comparatively miniscule armed aid that he announced on Monday obviously didn’t require him to be there in person.
The whole reason why the MSM and allied accounts on social media are overdosing on this cheap “copium” is because they know very well that tougher days are ahead for their side considering NATO’s military-industrial crisis, the sanctions’ failure, and Russia’s likely capture of Artyomovsk/“Bakhmut”. Kiev’s supporters urgently need a proverbial shot in the arm to keep their morale alive amidst the series of impending setbacks that are poised to afflict the Golden Billion’s proxies in the coming future.
The last thing that this de facto New Cold War bloc’s liberal-globalist elite needs is the masses losing hope in this post-modern crusade lest public pressure build to the point of complicating some NATO countries’ further dispatch of armed assistance to Kiev at the expense of their minimum security needs. The chain reaction of disadvantageous developments that was described in the present analysis and everything else that might thus follow if that unfolds could end up being a game-changer in this conflict.
The military-strategic dynamics are trending in Russia’s favor at this pivotal moment in the conflict, and even the economic ones too after the New York Times reported that the West’s sanctions failed, so there’s never been a more urgent time for a “copium” binge than now. Biden’s visit to Kiev won’t change the aforesaid, but it might very well succeed in temporarily distracting the Western masses from all this long enough for their elites to weaponize a new set of infowar narratives against them.
Munich Security Conference 2023: An Exercise in Western Self-Delusion
By Scott Ritter – Sputnik – 20.02.2023
Delegates from around the world assembled in Munich, Germany on February 17, 2023, to convene an eponymously named security conference that has, since its inception in 1963, operated under the motto “Peace through Dialogue.”
For three days, world leaders participated in what has become known as “the Davos of Defense” (a reference to the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland), discussing critical security issues of the day.
This year, not surprisingly, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict dominated the agenda. What was a surprise, however, was the emphasis that western participants placed on action over discussion when it came to formulating a collective strategy for achieving some sort of conflict termination. Indeed, the dominant theme at Munich was not simply how to provide more material to Ukraine’s military, but how to do so in a manner that escalates the conflict by challenging Russia’s so-called “red lines” – regarding western support to Ukraine.
For the first time since the 1990’s, Russia was not invited to attend the conference. Instead, prominent Russian opposition figures, including exiled oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, chess champion Gary Kasparov, and Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, were invited. The chairman of the conference, Christoph Heusgen, explained this pointed deviation from the principle of promoting dialogue by declaring that he did not want to be seen as providing a platform for Russian propaganda.
Instead, it turned out, Heusgen turned the floor over to western propagandists.
The underlying theme in Munich went beyond an escalation of support for Ukraine, and instead embraced the outright provocation of Russia. Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda served as the pace-setter for this trend when, prior to the Munich Security Conference, he urged western leaders to consider providing Ukraine with “essential military aid” such as tanks, fighter aircraft, and long-range missiles, despite long-standing concerns by the west that the provision of such aid would be seen by Russia as evidence of direct participation by the providing parties in the conflict. “These red lines,” Nauseda declared, “must be crossed.”
On cue, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky opened the conference with an appeal, delivered via video and designed to underscore a sense of urgency.
“We need to hurry up,” Zelensky declared. “We need speed—speed of our agreements, speed of our delivery, speed of decisions to limit Russian potential. There is no alternative to speed because it is the speed that the life depends on,” Zelensky said, concluding that there was “no alternative to a Ukrainian victory.”
But Zelensky’s exhortations for speed appeared to fall upon deaf ears when it came to two of Europe’s most important leaders. Both Germany’s Olaf Scholz and France’s Emmanuel Macron underscored that, from their perspective, the conflict in Ukraine would not be ending anytime soon. “I think it’s wise to prepare for a long war,” Scholz noted in his remarks to the conference, a sentiment Macron echoed by saying that Europe should prepare for a “prolonged conflict in Ukraine.”
Declaring that now was “not the time for dialogue,” Macron urged his fellow conference attendees to action. “We absolutely need to intensify our support and our effort to the resistance of the Ukrainian people and its army,” Macron said, and “help them to launch a counter-offensive which alone can allow credible negotiations, determined by Ukraine, its authorities and its people.”
There is a fundamental disconnect between the frenetic urgings of President Zelensky and the long-term approaches taken by Scholz and Macron that point to an overall atmosphere of self-delusion that seemed to dominate the Munich Security Conference.
While US Vice President Kamala Harris spoke of bringing Russian leaders “to justice” for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, the Ukrainian military is being systemically ground down on the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, soil that Russia now claims for its own. Current NATO military commander, Lieutenant General Christopher Cavoli, has described these battles as being “out of proportion” to NATO plans and capabilities in terms of the “scope and scale” of the violence being perpetrated on the ground by both parties to the conflict.
Rather than accept the inevitability of a Ukrainian military defeat, however, Cavoli briefed US lawmakers on the sidelines of the Munich Conference that, in his opinion, Ukraine should be provided with modern jet aircraft, including F-16 fighters, and long-range missiles capable of striking targets deep inside Russian territory. These weapons, Cavoli said, would enable Ukraine to fight what he termed “the deep fight”, shifting the emphasis from the deadly fighting at the point of direct engagement to a new war where Ukraine would disrupt the Russian war effort by striking headquarters and supply lines deep behind the frontlines.
In short, Cavoli was outlining an escalatory strategy brought to life by Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda’s earlier exhortations to cross all “red lines” when it came to supporting Ukraine.
But simple rhetoric cannot bridge the yawning gap that exists with reality. Words, especially in an environment like this year’s Munich Security Conference, where all pretense at dialogue has been forsaken in favor of the construction of a pro-western echo, resonate in a manner which promotes an artificial sense of substance. But unless these words are backed by concerted action, they carry no weight and will soon dissipate into nothingness.
This, in short, is the reality of the Munich Security Council—an exercise in self-delusion, similar in construct to the discussions around the conference table in the last days of the Battle of Berlin in 1945, in which Adolf Hitler moved imaginary armies around in a vain effort to seize victory from the inevitability of defeat.
The fact is, there are no tanks, no long-range missiles, no fighter aircraft available in any realistic time-frame that can help Ukraine reverse the deterioration of its military posture vis-à-vis Russia. Zelensky’s demands for urgency reflect a growing recognition on his part that, if left on the current trajectory, the war with Russia will be over soon—perhaps as early as August 2023. The inability and/or unwillingness on the part of the western military and civilian leadership to match their declarations of support with Zelensky’s timeline demonstrates an absolute divorce from reality on the part of those who were gathered in Munich, or else the cynicism of those who know the tragic fate that awaits those they claim to support only too well.
The harsh truth that the participants of the Munich Security Conference know, but cannot speak, is that there is no hope for a Ukrainian victory over Russia.
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How Macrocosmic Western Propaganda Launders Geopolitical Crimes
By Ronald Thomas West | February 10, 2021
This essay goes to the matter of Kosovo; where the Western states (NATO & the EU) have determined Serbia is not fit to govern a minority (of ethnic Albanians) on their own (Serbian) territory but the now purported (by the West) independent Kosovo is fit to govern a minority (of ethnic Serbs.)
The EU position seems to embrace an attitude of ‘never mind the inconvenient fact’ that recent Kosovo ‘leaders’ are being arrested and delivered to international tribunal for crimes against ethnic Serbs (includes organ harvesting), also not to mention what amounts to mere ‘lip service’ (no concrete action or enforcement) concerning the repatriation of 250,000 Serbs driven from Kosovo in an ethnic Albanian engineered cleansing pogrom following the NATO bombing of Serbia.
Insofar as an EU repatriation precedent, Croatia’s ethnic cleansing of Srpska Krajina shows the dishonesty of the EU position; there is no realistic expectation (and never was) by the European Union that the 200,000 Serbs expelled from this (formerly) Serb majority region would be allowed to return to Croatia and their homes. Meanwhile Croatia had been admitted to the European Union.
So, in the context of Serbs are not trustworthy to govern an ethnic minority of Albanians but Albanians are trustworthy to govern a minority of Serbs, the EU de facto embraces (actual outcomes, not political postures) just the sort of ethnic cleansing the NATO bombing was supposed to stop? … continue
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- Jail The White Men Who Caused The Climate Crisis Says Jane Fonda
- Pensioner Forced To Quit Tennis After Leisure Centre Goes Cashless
- Everest Base Camp Stays Where It Is As Sherpas Say “Bollox To Climate Change!”
- Nick Cave: “Don’t Boycott Songs Because Of The Artist’s Behaviour!”
- Retailers Claim Food Price Cap Will Make No Difference
- Not A Lot Of People Know That
- Bournemouth’s Spate Of “Deliberate” Heath Fires
- Yet Another Coffee Scare
- Labour Will Block New North Sea Oil & Gas
- Britain’s Weather A Hundred Years Ago
- EVs Will Increase Tyre Toxin Pollution
- BBC Verify
- New Energy Price Cap
- Record World Cereal Outputs Forecast for 2023/24
- The inconvenient truth about heat pumps
- Tom Burke
- No Tricks Zone
- Expert Prof. Gerd Ganteför Calls For More Studies On The Regional Climate Impact By Wind Turbines
- New Study Destroys ‘Doomsday Glacier’ Narrative…Today’s Ice 8 Times 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑐𝑘𝑒𝑟 Than Last 8000 Years
- Cold Grips Globally: Alaska’s 4th Cold Winter… Record Cold Down Under…UK’s Delayed Spring…
- Aarhus University Researchers Find Arctic Warmer, Ice-Free In Summertime 10,000 Years Ago!
- Professors: The Entire Fossil Fuel Industry Must Be ‘Euthanized’ To Save Humanity From Warmth
- German Green Parliamentarian Shocks The Nation…Couldn’t Even Name First German Empire Chancellor!
- Another New Study Shows The Siberian Arctic Is Warmer When CO2 Is Low And Colder As CO2 Rises
- German Greens In Crisis, Plummet 40% In Opinion Polls As Anger Mounts Over Bans, Scandals
- Germany’s Growing List Of Bans: Next Up: Wood Stoves And Heating With Wood!
- New Study: The Lowest Tibetan Plateau Glacial Temps Were Still 3°C Warmer Than Today
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