Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

US senators demand Biden seize more Iranian oil tankers

The Cradle | April 28, 2023

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers has urged President Joe Biden to enable the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) to seize more Iranian oil and gas shipments.

“It is unacceptable that a US government program, which makes the United States and its allies safer, provides funds to remediate the victims of terrorism, and generates income for the United States in a cost-effective manner has been allowed to languish,” a letter drafted by Senators Joni Ernst and Richard Blumenthal reads.

The letter then highlights that the HIS has not been allowed to conduct what amounts to maritime piracy for more than a year before lamenting the success of the Islamic Republic in bypassing US sanctions to boost its oil and gas exports.

“As Iranian oil sales continue to rise, and the IRGC continues to target US citizens and servicemembers, including inside the US, it is imperative that we use all available government assets to limit the activities of the Iranian regime.”

Other senators that signed the letter included Ted Cruz, Steve Daines, Lindsey Graham, Maggie Hassan, Mark Kelly, Joe Manchin, Jerry Moran, Marco Rubio, Kyrsten Sinema, and Ron Wyden.

“The failure to support HSI’s Iranian oil seizure and disruption operations in FY22, despite available funds, is a policy choice that must be reversed,” the senators stressed.

HIS was formed in 2019 during the government of former president Donald Trump. According to the lawmakers, the agency is responsible for pillaging nearly $230 million in Iranian crude and fuel oil.

Its operations have reportedly been curtailed by “policy limitations” from the Department of Treasury’s Executive Office for Asset Forfeiture.

Despite an ever-intensifying “‘maximum pressure” sanctions campaign from the west, Iranian oil exports have reached their highest level since 2015.

According to Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji, Iran exported 83 million more oil barrels in the past 12-month period compared to the 12 months before. At the same time, gas exports increased by 15 percent over the past 12 months.

Iranian crude exports fell to as little as 100,000 bpd in 2020 from over 2.5 million bpd in 2018.

Tehran has been able to evade the US-imposed sanctions, partly through oil sales to China, Iran’s biggest customer, and increase its exports. To avoid sanctions, most of Iran’s crude exports to China are rebranded as crude from other countries. This is done by forging documents to hide the origin of Iranian oil cargo.

See also: Quiet US Seizure Of Iranian Crude Prompted Iran’s Capture Of Houston-Destined Tanker

April 29, 2023 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , | Leave a comment

UN cross-border aid program for Syria abused by extremists: Moscow

The Cradle | April 28, 2023

Moscow’s permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzia, said on 27 April that the UN-sponsored cross-border aid mechanism for Syria has “exhausted its capabilities” and is being “used for other purposes.”

The cross-border humanitarian aid mechanism has “has long since exhausted its capabilities and is being used for other purposes, far from addressing the humanitarian situation,” Nebenzia stressed.

The cross-border aid mechanism was established by the UN in 2014 in order to provide aid to northern Syria through the Turkish-Syrian border without authorization from the government in Damascus – a contravention of international regulations.

However, extremist militants in control of large swathes of Syria’s north began taking advantage of the mechanism in order to seize humanitarian aid for themselves, at times to sell for higher prices. Northern border-crossings associated with the UN aid program have even been subject to drug smuggling by armed groups.

Groups such as the Nusra Front, the former Al-Qaeda branch now known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), have also been involved in kidnapping aid workers to demand large ransoms – worsening an already volatile humanitarian situation. The aid program also excludes the majority of the population who reside in government-held territory, where an economy ravaged by sanctions has created significant humanitarian concerns.

“We would like to stress that if our western colleagues in the UN Security Council continue to act as if nothing has happened, and ignore the thwarting of the implementation of the Security Council resolution by international terrorists, we will draw the required conclusions from the current situation while formulating our position on extending the aid transfer mechanism for next July,” Nebenzia added.

The last time the cross-border aid mechanism was extended was in January this year. Russia has called for an end to the program numerous times, and has vetoed its extension in the past.

“It looks like permissions to use two additional checkpoints for three months, issued by Damascus, have de-facto reduced to zero UN enthusiasm to unblock deliveries via the contact line,” the Russian official said.

This refers to the two additional border crossings opened by the Syrian government following February’s devastating earthquake. The crossings, which link government-held territory to the militant-held north, would allow aid to be dispersed conventionally through the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC). However, the UN has yet to lift restrictions on the use of these crossings.

Some have said that this is to perpetuate the idea that Damascus is behind the obstruction of aid delivery across the country, when in fact, HTS and other groups are to blame.

April 29, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | 1 Comment

US officials accuse Russia of antagonizing Washington’s illegally occupying troops in Syria

By Robert Inlakesh | RT | April 29, 2023

The US military, with the help of its Kurdish allies, occupies a third of Syrian territory with no legal basis and is now complaining about Russia antagonizing its troops. Although Moscow has been invited into Syria by Damascus and the US has repeatedly been asked to leave, the Americans are treating Syrian territory as if it is their own.

US officials have recently lashed out with yet more accusations against Moscow. This time the complaints have surfaced through Western corporate media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). The head of US Air Forces Central Command, Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, told the WSJ that “we continue to see unsafe and unprofessional area activity from the Russians,” reportedly in proximity of US forces. No evidence has been provided for the claims and Moscow has yet to make any comment.

In July of last year, Dana Stroul, the Biden administration’s deputy assistant secretary of defense (DASD) for the Middle East, said: “Russia is flying in and moving about, at times, in the same space or terrain, near our forces, and it is the responsible, professional thing to do to make sure we have a channel to talk to each other.” She claimed this system has been in place for “a very long time” and is key in preventing misunderstandings that could “tip into an escalatory cycle.” With the presence of both forces in close proximity so frequently, there has yet to be any indication that what is being complained about now is anything new.

However, the story that is being completely written out of existence here is that the US has no legitimacy whatsoever to even operate inside Syria. The US government attempts to legally justify its presence by asserting that under international law it is a victim state in the face of non-state actors such as ‘Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Therefore, the Authorization for Use of Military Force (UAMF) against Iraq, which was passed by US Congress in 2002, is utilized here.

The problem is that the US invasion of Iraq had no validity under international law either, a point explicitly made by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2004. Knowing this, US government officials will always cite their invitation from the Iraqi government to operate inside the country today, sometimes attempting to attach their operations in Syria as coming in defense of their Iraqi ally. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, an international law which prohibits the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state, completely invalidates US operations inside Syria, since the sovereign government of the nation never granted America permission to enter its territory. In fact, it has even ordered US forces to leave.

Even if you buy the domestic argument about the US fight against ISIS, an organization that has been reduced to terror cells that linger in caves for the most part, this justification also begins to fall apart when examined closely. In 2017, US Senator for Virginia, Tim Kaine, wrote to the US State Department and Secretary of Defense, expressing his concern that if the anti-ISIS mission was extended to include pursuing objectives outside combating the terrorist group, it would have no legitimacy.

In 2018, former US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson stated that he planned on maintaining an indefinite troop presence in Syria, both to fight ISIS and to combat Iran and Syrian President Bashar Assad. Even today, the US Department of Defense openly mentions that its mission in Syria and Iraq is a strategy to undermine Iran and ISIS. At one point, after former US President Donald Trump had been misled to believe that all US forces had been withdrawn from Syria, he corrected himself by saying that the US military presence there is “only for the oil.”

Interestingly, at a conference in 2019, Stroul stated that despite the lack of investment that the US was able to muster to counter Iranian and Russian influence in Syria, it still maintained compelling leverage “to shape an outcome that is more protective and conducive to US interests.”

Stroul outlined four ways that the US maintains its leverage. The first key point she made was about the territory in the north-east, which she said is “owned via the US military with its local partner,” adding that the “one third of Syria is the resource rich, economic powerhouse of Syria.” She elaborated that this is “where the hydrocarbons are” and that it is also the “agricultural powerhouse” of the country. Additionally, she stated that the strategy of isolating the government in Damascus diplomatically is in part about preventing Moscow’s efforts to re-integrate the country onto the international stage, and that US sanctions are partly attached to a wider anti-Iran strategy.

Perhaps the most shocking of all Stroul’s points was the admission that the US has only allowed reconstruction in the areas controlled by its SDF allies in occupied Syria while commenting that “the rest of Syria is rubble.” Stroul continued, “What Russia wants and what Assad want, is economic reconstruction and that is something that the United States can basically hold a card on via the international financial institutions and our cooperation with the Europeans.” In the wake of the devastating earthquake in Northern Syria earlier this year, the prevention of reconstruction has contributed significantly to civilian suffering resulting from the natural disaster.

The US Caesar Act sanctions have been blasted for years by UN experts, who have called upon the Biden administration to drop them over the “suffocating” humanitarian crisis they are inflicting on Syrian civilians. Under international law, the third of Syrian territory “owned” by the US can be argued as tantamount to an illegal occupation by a foreign military force. Given that the US military is an occupying power, Damascus has the right to use force to expel it, furthermore, since Russia has been invited into Syria by the official government, the US claims of harassment carry no weight. The United States of America has no right to claim self defense in Syria, it has only one right there – to leave and not return.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.

April 29, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , | 1 Comment

Zelensky and Biden may be on their way out

BY STEPHEN BRYEN | ASIA TIMES | APRIL 29, 2023

There is no doubt now that Bakhmut will soon fall to the Russians. How soon? Probably a few days and no more than one week.

Ukraine says it has managed to evacuate its elite forces from the city, leaving only rearguard elements to hang on until the end. Efforts by Ukraine to provide counterattacks have not borne fruit, and all efforts have been stopped by Russian paratroopers and Wagner PMC fighters, along with generous amounts of Russian artillery.

Meanwhile, the Russians themselves are refocusing on the newly created Ukrainian brigades that are supposed to lead the counteroffensive. These are the brigades that have been stuffed up to their ears with Western hardware but lack well-trained troops.

Such brigades also face complex, perhaps impossible, logistical challenges, since the Western supplies require spare parts, repair centers and in many cases different types of ammunition. Even the Leopard II tanks supplied can’t all use the same ammunition.

More worrisome for Ukraine’s army is the lack of replacement supplies if their coming offensive drags on. Simply put, there are almost no supplies around. The US is mostly out of ammunition and has been stripping stockpiles in South Korea and Israel – something that has alarmed Israel’s generals, who think a hot war with Iran is only weeks away.

The South Koreans have kept quiet, mostly because President Yoon Suk Yeol has just completed a visit to Washington that was stage-managed to make Joe Biden look good. So far as can be determined, the visit was completely ceremonial and basically fruitless.

(Strictly speaking, the only result was that Yoon used the occasion of a state dinner to sing “American Pie,” no matter whether Joe drove his Chevy to the levee, or went over the side. The fact that the levee was dry is a current-time social commentary.)

At the eleventh hour, Ukraine is trying hard to recruit more soldiers, sometimes using rough tactics to dragoon young men.  Such troops can’t possibly be trained in time. Practically speaking they are, at most, cannon fodder.

But the Ukrainians want to look credible to their American masters, so not only do they grab young people from street corners or in front of popular watering holes such as McDonald’s, but they beat them up if they resist.

The same is happening to any Ukrainian journalist who tries to write anything the so-called democratic government of Ukraine does not like. Volodymyr Zelensky’s regime has arrested political opponents or chased them out of the country, or worse. And these days Ukrainian special operations groups are assassinating journalists and commentators in Russia and elsewhere who oppose Ukraine.

After Bakhmut is gone, it is possible the Russians will suggest negotiations with the United States. Biden, who is running for re-election, does not want any status quo change until he is re-elected.

But Biden’s re-election is getting more and more remote as the semi-senile president stumbles and bumbles and as a number of his government’s policies will, in the end, bring down his administration notwithstanding his faltering mental status or how many dead Ukrainians pay the price for his re-election effort.

A vast wave of immigrants will soon flood across the southern border of the US; new taxes will soon be slapped on mortgages for people with good credit scores (without bothering to get congressional approval); inflation keeps killing the middle class; and worst of all, the Biden administration demands control of all children’s sexuality without the parents having any say-so.

Without negotiations, the Russians will attempt to systematically destroy Ukraine’s new brigades. With larger forces, better tactics, and more air power, air defenses and ground equipment, the Russians could very well defeat the Ukrainian army and force regime change in Kiev.

In short, in the not-too-distant future, Biden may have to hang up his walker and Zelensky may be looking for a job in California.

Stephen Bryen is a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and at the Yorktown Institute.

April 29, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | 1 Comment

US Nuclear Sensors in Ukraine Deployed to Scapegoat Russia

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 29.04.2023

The reason behind Washington setting up sensors across Ukraine to detect a potential nuclear blast may involve shifting the blame to Russia if a radioactive weapon is used, or even if it is not used, but only reported in Western media, Karen Kwiatkowski, former US Department of Defense analyst and retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, told Sputnik.

The Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST), a group of scientists, technicians, and engineers operating under the United States Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, is deploying nuclear sensors throughout Ukraine to both detect‌‌ bursts of radiation from a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb and identify the attacker. As per The New York Times, the goal is to verify Moscow’s culpability if Russia detonates a radioactive weapon on Ukrainian soil. The Western media has long disseminated groundless claims that Moscow may resort to the use of nuclear arms if defeated in Ukraine. Russia has resolutely shredded the assumptions, referring to intelligence alleging the Kiev regime’s potential detonation of a so-called “dirty bomb,” a “radiological dispersal device” (RDD) that combines a conventional explosive with radioactive material. The purpose of the possible provocation would be to blame Moscow for the resulting radioactive contamination.

“It makes sense that the secretive NEST team is being deployed to very quickly shift blame to Russia if any radioactive weapon is used (or even if it is not used, but only reported in Western media),” said Karen Kwiatkowski. “The US track record is provocative and the policy players are unwise, almost to a person. There is an argument to be made that this is one more way the US hopes to ‘win’ the narrative, and threaten Russia, by reporting a nuclear release, and immediately blaming Russia (as the story is already structured to do) and protecting the last Ukrainian war enthusiasts from accountability. To this day, despite evidence and logic to the contrary, most of the Western world still believes it was Russians shooting at Zaporozhye [Nuclear Power Plant] last year from Ukrainian territory, while those same Russians were holding and operating the reactor.”

One cannot completely rule out that this preventative deployment is meant to ensure Ukrainians don’t use radioactive weapons in their own last ditch efforts as the war comes to an end, according to the US Air Force veteran. Kwiatkowski suggested that the deployment could serve as a direct message to the remnants of the Ukrainian military and political leaders who could run amok, thus upsetting big Western corporations’ plans to rebuild Ukraine and upending enthusiasm of Western donors. “You can be sure BlackRock intends to profit from rebuilding Ukraine, and cleaning up nuclear contamination is not a profit center,” she stressed. Still, it raises questions how corporations’ interests would correlate with the UK plans to provide the Kiev regime with depleted uranium shells which can contaminate water, soil, and inflict irreparable harm on people’s health in the region. The former Pentagon analyst pointed out that the NEST’s network of sensors must include an array of sensor types to capture and measure the wide variety of radiation types and also be able to collect and test physical samples at the atomic level.

“Radiation from a nuclear plant leak is different from radiation from a radioactive weapon or even a dirty bomb,” Kwiatkowski explained. “The NEST itself is focused on response to radiation events, and there may be innocent explanations for this deployment to Ukraine. For example, looking for radiation leakage from nuclear reactors like at Zaporozhye may be a concern for NATO soldiers and the Ukrainian Army, vis-a-vis rebuilding and infrastructure repair planned for the future. But that is not how the NYT, a state media organ with direct connections to Pentagon intelligence and policy, described it.”

April 29, 2023 Posted by | False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

The U.S. Proxy War Against Russia & China Is Increasingly Seen Globally As A Disaster Made By American And NATO Lies

Strategic Culture Foundation | April 28, 2023

It has become patently obvious to the world that the conflict in Ukraine is a dirty and desperate geopolitical confrontation, despite massive Western media efforts to portray it as something else more noble – the usual charade of chivalry and virtue to disguise naked Western imperialism.

The death and destruction in Ukraine is nothing but a proxy war by the United States and its NATO partners to defeat Russia in a strategic gambit. But the unspoken objective does not end with Russia. The U.S. and its Western imperialist lackeys are driven to push for confrontation with China too.

As if taking on Russia is not reckless enough! The Western powers want to double down on their warmongering with China. This is all because the underlying impetus is for Washington and its Western minions to promote U.S.-led dominance of the global order. Russia and China are the main obstacles to that path of would-be dominance, and hence we see this manic drive for aggression stemming from Washington, the executive power of the Western order.

It should be obvious that while the U.S.-led NATO axis has stoked the war in Ukraine to calamitous heights, this same axis is wantonly inciting tensions with China. This observation alone should be enough to condemn the criminality of Western powers.

This week saw the NATO powers deliver depleted uranium weapons to the Kiev regime, while the United States announced that it would be docking submarine nuclear warheads in South Korea, a move that infuriated China which pointed out that Washington was violating decades-old commitments to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Of course, such perverse provocation is par for the course as far as Washington is concerned. It is done deliberately in a conscious effort to exacerbate tensions and escalate militarism. Peace and security are anathemas to the U.S. (and its minions) whose whole ideological raison d’être is to aggravate war to gratify corporate capitalist addiction – a system that is increasingly bankrupt and dysfunctional, and hence the insane desperation for craving “war-fixes”.

In a scathing speech to the United Nations Security Council this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserted that the conflict in Ukraine cannot be properly resolved without an understanding of the geopolitical context. In other words, the war in the former Soviet republic which erupted last February has bigger causes than what the Western powers and their compliant news media would try to pretend otherwise.

Defense of Ukraine? Defense of democracy? Defense of international law? Defense of national sovereignty? These are some of the laughable claims made by Washington and its allies. One only has to consider the decades of total trashing of the UN Charter and democratic principles by the United States and its rogue partners in their pursuit of criminal wars to realize that their virtue-signaling over Ukraine is a vile joke.

Lavrov’s address to the Security Council was a stunning rebuke of the hypocrisy and criminality of the United States, Britain, France, Germany and other NATO powers, as well as the European Union. His speech was akin to the scene in the classic old movie The Wizard of Oz when the curtain was pulled back on the buffoonish villain for all to see. Any objective observer would agree with the Russian foreign minister’s excoriating survey of modern history and why the war in Ukraine has tragically manifested. Lamentably, if we fail to understand history and the real causes of conflicts, then we are condemned to repeat the horrors.

Ironically, Western leaders have at times revealed the bigger geopolitical agenda with their own misspoken arrogant words. U.S. President Joe Biden had previously blurted out a call for regime change in Moscow while his senior aides, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, have succumbed to the intoxication of their narcissism and hubris by saying that the purpose of the war in Ukraine is the “defeat of Russia”.

Other NATO senior figures, such as the stupid, conceited Polish leaders and their Baltic buddies, have also come out and stated that the war’s ulterior agenda is to vanquish Russia. The fascist skeletons of their Nazi-collusion past have resurrected their deathly rattles, uncontrollably.

As Lavrov’s address to the Security Council intimates, the systematic violation of the UN Charter by the United States and its Western partners is a deplorable continuation of the Nazi fascism and imperialist barbarism that was supposed to have been defeated in World War Two. The culmination of the constant, unbridled Western imperialist criminality and its state terrorism is the current war in Ukraine and the growing aggression toward China over Taiwan as a pretext.

In all of this, woefully, the Western public has been flagrantly lied to by their governments and media as to the real nature of the war in Ukraine. American and European citizens have been bilked for hundreds of billions of dollars to prop up a Nazi regime in Kiev whose function is to act as a NATO spear-tip against Russia, and ultimately China when the NATO powers feel they are done with Ukraine. (The latter is a futile ambition, as is becoming increasingly evident.)

Journalists and antiwar activists in the West who highlight the malfeasance over Ukraine are either sacked, vilified, censored, or sanctioned into poverty, or even imprisoned.

Nevertheless, the Western public and the rest of the world are increasingly becoming aware of the odious charade. By definition, charades are inevitably untenable.

The Global South – the majority of the 193 nations at the UN – has had it with Western capitalist hegemony and its outrageous neocolonialist privileges. The incremental dumping of the U.S. dollar as an international reserve currency for trade is a testament to the historic shift towards a multipolar order in defiance of Western unipolar elitism. The nations of Africa, Latin America and Asia understand that the U.S.-led NATO war in Ukraine is a desperate last-ditch bid to preserve an imperialist global order which should have been eradicated after World War Two with the establishment of the United Nations, but which, regrettably, was not. Because the root cause of imperialism is the AngloAmerican-led Western capitalist order. The end of World War Two, as with World War One, was but a pause in the historical killing machine.

It is now increasingly evident in the light of leaked documents from the Pentagon that the war in Ukraine is a disaster. The Kiev regime is facing defeat at the hands of superior Russian forces even though that regime has been flooded with weapons by the United States and NATO. Great expectations of a Ukrainian victory that were widely predicted by Western leaders and media have been shown to be empty, contemptible lies.

The side-show of this war is a gargantuan racket. Western arms companies have raked in unprecedented profits, while the NATO-backed cabal in Kiev has skimmed off hundreds of millions of dollars. This is the same Kiev regime that is burning down Orthodox Christian churches, exterminating the Russian language, lionizing World War Two Nazi criminals, and locking up any critical opposition and media.

But the main takeaway is the lies that the United States and Western lackeys, including the entire media industry, have been telling about the proxy war in Ukraine. This war is an imperialist adventure that has been financially ruinous, has destroyed Ukraine, and is driving a dangerous all-out war with Russia and China that could turn into a nuclear armageddon.

We should not be surprised by such blatant lying and deception. President Joe Biden and his administration have been telling barefaced lies to conceal the corruption oozing out of Biden’s own family. Biden and his son Hunter have exploited Ukraine since the CIA-backed coup in Kiev in 2014 for personal enrichment. The president has even reportedly got his senior aides to do his bidding to censor intelligence agencies and media from revealing to the public the corruption at the heart of his family. (Risibly, the truth is smeared as Russian or Chinese disinformation!)

The lies that Biden and his administration tell about personal corruption are indelibly coupled with the lies told about the proxy war in Ukraine.

It is increasingly clear that the American public, the European public, and the rest of the world have been duped in multiple ways. The phony war in Ukraine is exposing the deep, stinking well of corruption in this White House. There will be hell to pay.

April 29, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , , , , | 4 Comments

US Democrats fundraise from arms dealers amid Pentagon budget fight

Press TV – April 29, 2023

Top Democratic lawmakers in the US are holding a fundraising meeting with major arms companies on Thursday as Washington plunges into a budget battle in which concessions to the Pentagon and the defense industry could mean cuts to welfare programs such as food stamps.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, his deputy Pete Aguilar, and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) chair Rep. Suzan Delbene have been selected as the honorees to be invited to the event. The downtown D.C. function ― dubbed a “defense and national security dinner” ― is set to raise funds for the committee, which is the campaign arm for House Democrats and is central to their hopes of regaining the lower chamber of Congress.

Dozens of representatives of Pentagon contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, SpaceX, Palantir, and General Dynamics will attend the event.

The group includes figures who previously worked for congressional Democrats, such as Shana Chandler, director of government relations at General Dynamics. Chandler spent 15 years as chief of staff for Rep. Adam Smith, the Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and another co-host of Thursday’s event.

The event could provide a significant signal about the priorities of the House Democrats as they prepare for the 2024 elections and battle Republicans who are demanding spending cuts in exchange for passing critical legislation. It could be a disappointing message to those who want the party to support social justice and progressive reform.

A senior congressional aide said news of the fundraiser set off alarm bells among staffers, and the event could be a stark example of senior Democratic leaders saying one thing but doing another. Democrats claim to support reining in out-of-control defense spending and criticize Republicans for serving America’s most powerful corporate interests while doing exactly that themselves.

In the coming months, Democratic lawmakers are expected to make key decisions that will affect the US defense industry as they fight Republican efforts to cut government spending.

US House Speaker Kevin McCarthy says he wants comprehensive cuts. But signals from influential Republicans and analysis by budget experts suggest that McCarthy will protect the Pentagon budget.

Democrats can also demand limits on Pentagon spending to protect other government agencies. However, the defense industry will lobby hard to prevent such a development.

The United States remains by far the world’s biggest military spender, according to new data on global military spending published today by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

US military spending reached $877 billion in 2022, which was 39 percent of total global military spending and three times more than the amount spent by China, the world’s second largest spender.

The 0.7 percent real-terms increase in US spending in 2022 would have been even greater had it not been for the highest levels of inflation since 1981.

“The increase in the USA’s military spending in 2022 was largely accounted for by the unprecedented level of financial military aid it provided to Ukraine,” said Dr Nan Tian, SIPRI Senior Researcher. “Given the scale of US spending, even a minor increase in percentage terms has a significant impact on the level of global military expenditure.”

US financial military aid to Ukraine totaled $19.9 billion in 2022. Although this was the largest amount of military aid given by any country to a single beneficiary in any year since the cold war, it represented only 2.3 percent of total US military spending.

In 2022 the USA allocated $295 billion to military operations and maintenance, $264 billion to procurement and research and development, and $167 billion to military personnel.

April 29, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Poland Wants To Provoke Russia Into Being The First To Formally Cut Off Bilateral Relations

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | APRIL 29, 2023

Poland’s ruling “Law & Justice” (PiS) party is hellbent on provoking Russia into being the first to formally cut off bilateral relations as proven by Warsaw’s earlier seizing of its embassy’s bank account on ridiculous “anti-terrorist” pretexts and Saturday’s police raid against an embassy-run school in the capital. The Kremlin is therefore under immense pressure to respond to these developments, though it’s unclear at the time of this analysis’ publication whether it’ll do what Poland expects.

The purpose behind provoking Russia into this course of action is threefold: 1) PiS hopes to manipulate and subsequently exploit optics of this scandal in order to cultivate more support ahead of this fall’s elections; 2) Poland then plans to pressure the rest of the EU to formally cut off ties with Russia “out of solidarity”; and finally, 3) Warsaw wants to present itself to Washington as its most reliable anti-Russian ally. Each of these interconnected goals will now be briefly expanded upon.

Regarding the first, PiS fears that genuinely conservative-patriotic forces will flock to the anti-establishment Confederation party as an act of protest against the ruling one’s support for mass immigration from Ukraine over the past year. That could compel it to enter into a coalition government after this fall’s elections, which might reduce the intensity of Poland’s anti-Russian policies. Accordingly, they hope to exploit voters’ Russophobia to scare them into supporting the incumbents no matter what.

As for the second, Germany and Poland are fiercely competing for leadership over Central & Eastern Europe (CEE), but Warsaw has an edge when it comes to winning hearts and minds since it’s always one step ahead of Berlin in appealing to the region’s Russophobia. If Poland can successfully pressure Germany to follow its lead in formally cutting off ties with Russia if the latter is coerced into cutting them off first after this weekend’s incident, then it would be a major soft power victory.

Concerning the third, Poland’s envisaged restoration of its former “sphere of influence” is dependent on the US’ support, which can only be assured if it convinces American policymakers that their successfully reasserted hegemony over the EU is symbiotically dependent on these plans. To that end, Warsaw must show Washington that it’s more capable of leading the latter’s anti-Russian crusade in the EU during the New Cold War than Berlin is, hence the importance of provoking crises and getting Germany to follow.

These goals are all interconnected since the abovementioned grand strategy is purely PiS’ own creation. It therefore naturally follows that their potential loss of power after this fall’s elections – whether in whole if it’s replaced by the German-backed “Civic Platform” (PO) opposition or in part via a coalition with Confederation – could impede its regional plans and thus also the US’ to an extent as well. That’s why the latest diplomatic crisis with Russia was cooked up in order to help PiS stay in power.

Everything else proceeds from that scenario since their continued leadership of Poland would keep Warsaw in the race with Berlin for hearts and minds across CEE, thus giving Washington the option of choosing between them (or even cynically playing those two against each other) as its top EU partner. PiS’ potential removal from this geopolitical calculation in the event that voters punish it at the polls this fall could therefore have far-reaching consequences for the region and even for the New Cold War.

April 29, 2023 Posted by | Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Poland’s Top Military Official Shared Some Unpopular Truths About The NATO-Russian Proxy War

BY ANDREW KORYBKO | APRIL 29, 2023

The last time that Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces General Rajmund Andrzejczak generated media attention was in late January after he elaborated on how formidable Russia remained at the time, but now he’s once again making headlines for building upon this assessment. Poland’s Do Rzecy reported on his recent participation in a strategy session with the National Security Bureau, during which time he shared some unpopular truths about the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine.

Andrzejczak said that the situation doesn’t look good for Kiev at all when considering the economic dynamics of this conflict, with him drawing particular attention to finance, infrastructure issues, social issues, technology, and food production, et al. From this vantage point, he predicts that Russia can continue conducting its special operation for 1-2 more years before it begins to feel any structural pressure to curtail its activities.

By contrast, Kiev is burning through tens of billions of dollars’ worth of aid, yet it still remains very far away from achieving its maximum objectives. Andrzejczak candidly said that Poland’s Western partners aren’t properly assessing the challenges that stand in the way of Ukraine’s victory, including those connected to the “race of logistics”/ war of attrition” that the NATO chief declared in mid-February. Another serious problem concerns refugees’ unwillingness to return to their homeland anytime soon.

These economic, logistical, and population factors combined to convince him that he must urgently raise the greatest possible awareness of these problems in order to “give Ukraine a chance to build its secure future”, which in the context that he shared this motivation, is a euphemism for even more Western aid. He elaborated by adding that “As a soldier, I am also obliged to present the most unfavorable and difficult to implement variant, giving a field to all those who can and should help Ukraine.”

Nobody should therefore doubt Andrzejczak’s intentions or suspect that he’s a so-called “Russian agent” since he sincerely wants the West to win its proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, but he’s also very worried that it might lose unless his side acknowledges the unpopular truths that he just shared. In his view, their failure to do so could doom Kiev to defeat, though the argument can also compellingly be made that indefinitely perpetuating this conflict like Poland seeks to do might be even more disastrous.

After all, none of the three challenges that he drew attention to can be overcome anytime soon. The only exception might be the population one, but that would entail changing EU legislation in order to allow the expulsion of refugees, which is unlikely to happen. The economic and logistical factors are systemic ones, which affect not only Ukraine, but the entire West in general. It’s simply impossible to sustain the pace, scale, and scope of the West’s multidimensional aid to Ukraine if the conflict drags on.

As Andrzejczak himself admitted, “We just don’t have ammunition. The industry is not ready not only to send equipment to Ukraine, but also to replenish our stocks, which are melting.” Considering that Poland is Ukraine’s third most important patron behind the Anglo-American Axis, this strongly suggests that all other NATO members are struggling just as much as it is to keep up the pace, scale, and scope of support, if not more since many are a lot smaller and thus less capable of contributing in this respect.

Accordingly, this observation means that Kiev’s upcoming counteroffensive will likely be its “last hurrah” prior to resuming peace talks with Russia since the West won’t be able to keep up its assistance for much longer. Andrzejczak seems keenly aware of this “politically inconvenient” fact, hence why he wants his side to give its proxies as much as possible until the end of that operation in the hopes that they can then be in a comparatively more advantageous position by the time these talks recommence.

He and those who think like him are making two very dangerous gambles: 1) they expect the upcoming counteroffensive to be at least mildly successful in gaining some ground; and 2) anticipate that Russia will agree to resume peace talks once this operation finally ends. The corresponding risks are obvious in that: 1) the counteroffensive might fail so badly that Russia exploits this disaster to gain an uncertain amount of ground instead; and/or 2) Moscow might not recommence talks upon Kiev’s request.

No responsible policymaker would take either of those variables for granted, hence why it’s arguably better if Kiev abandons its counteroffensive and accepts China’s ceasefire proposal instead of taking the growing risk that it fails and/or Russia keeps fighting knowing that Western support might soon end. Those interconnected worst-case scenarios are growing in likelihood due to the economic and logistical challenges that Andrzejczak identified, with only the chance of Russian mishaps balancing out the odds.

Nevertheless, all indications suggest that the counteroffensive will soon begin despite the serious challenges inherent in it, with this decision being driven by political factors connected with the need to show the Western public that their over $150 billion worth of aid has been spent on something tangible. Even if it ends up being a disastrous spectacle, decisionmakers are willing to take that risk, with some like Andrzejczak wanting to go all in out of desperation to score a final victory before resuming peace talks.

April 29, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Has the NATO boss lost his mind?

By Martin Jay | Strategic Culture Foundation | April 28, 2023

So NATO now is planning on making Ukraine a member, or at least this is the rhetoric coming from its secretary general who recently announced it. Given that the very essence of what the Ukraine war is about is membership of this 31 member defence organisation it would seem unfitting for Stoltenberg to make such an announcement, especially considering that Hungary would always veto such an idea anyway.

So what’s really behind this latest ‘news’ item? Here are the five ways to interpret the subject of Ukraine becoming a NATO member. Buckle up.

News fodder not to be taken seriously. Could Stoltenberg just be bluffing? It’s quite possible, given the lack of any progress or battle victories on the side of Ukraine that he is concerned about the lull in media coverage and needs to throw the journalists a bone to chew on, to distract them away from reporting “Ukraine is losing the war”. And this NATO membership subject would certainly do that for a couple of weeks while Ukrainian troops cede defeat in Bakhmut which is slowly being taken by Russia. Although this town is not considered a ‘prize’ by either side, it is still a crush to the morale of Ukrainian forces who have taken heavy losses and will always be a negative talking point for western journalists – or the few who at least decide to report on Ukraine’s loss there.

Preparing for NATO troops to fight in Ukraine. It is entirely possible that NATO members and its chief are in a panic mode now that well over 100 bn dollars given to the Ukrainians in the last year seems to have vanished in terms of battlefield hardware with no real progress in sight; and also that the spring offensive which Ukraine is preparing – which would probably target the Crimean bridge and strategic towns like Mariupol – is being prepared for but is highly risky. For Ukraine to make any headway the offensive needs to be bold and this all-or-nothing game plan is worrying NATO as, in the event of heavy losses, it will push the West into a corner in how they explain this to their own voters (especially with U.S. election campaigning expected to start at the end of the summer). Are things so desperate that the Plan B that Stoltenberg has is that NATO troops – probably from eastern European countries that have the most to lose – will be sent to Ukraine? And that this NATO membership story is a ruse to prepare the west for this scenario as if NATO were to make Ukraine a member immediately, then, in theory Article 5 would apply and it would be an automatic process to send other NATO troops there?

Preparing for mercenaries from neo-Nazi groups in Europe to be sent there. This notion could well be the compromise for going full throttle on NATO membership and sending troops to Ukraine. Instead, would western countries consider looking at their own neo-Nazi groups and consider sending them on an informal basis with maximum plausible deniability that this is official policy? This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. In the UK in 2011, the security services gave full support to young Libyan men to travel there and fight with Al Qaeda groups against Ghaddafi so why wouldn’t they allow skinheads to travel to Ukraine in great numbers to fight Russians while keeping their social security benefits at home?

Guarantee that no negotiation for peace can take place. One of the nightmare scenarios for the West, in particular the U.S., is that Zelensky can’t keep his side of the bargain and looks to end the war. NATO and the U.S. clearly would like to rule this out and so how to do it without causing too much of a fall-out? Announce NATO membership as an incentive for when the war is over. But this narrative is too hard for the Ukrainian president to swallow given the losses that he is enduring on a daily basis and for the promises made for military hardware to bear fruit and in time. It seems a neat, swift and clever way of ruling out any peace talks between the U.S. and Russia also. One clean blow.

Panic after Zelensky reached out to China to broker peace. The problem with the former plan about guaranteeing that peace talks are blocked between U.S. and Russia is of course it swings the spotlight onto other superpowers, or the main one, in fact, China to step up to the mark. It must be incredibly frustrating for the Biden administration and the NATO boss to read in the newspaper at the end of February that Zelensky is openly asking the Chinese premier to come to Ukraine and to “call” him. There can be no grey area here with this appeal. Zelensky wants China to broker a peace deal as he knows it is impossible for his own sponsors and so-called allies to do so. This, on its own, may well explain a certain panic reaction by the U.S. which has been felt by the NATO boss as well and both of these camps are looking at “when shit hits the fan” scenarios of boots on the ground.

April 29, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | 2 Comments

West’s efforts to isolate Russia have failed – Lavrov

RT | April 29, 2023

The West has failed to isolate Russia, with the majority of the world still interested in maintaining good relations with Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. He also argued that the trend toward multipolarity is irreversible, whether former colonial powers like it or not.

Addressing the World Online Conference on Multipolarity on Saturday, Lavrov said that “Washington’s and its satellites’ efforts to reverse history, to force the international community to live by the invented ‘rules-based order’” are proving to be a fiasco, citing the “total failure” of the West “to isolate Russia.”

According to the foreign minister, a number of countries, which combined are home to 85% of the world’s population, have made it clear that they will not do the bidding of the former colonial powers.

The Russian diplomat said the fact that delegates from several dozen nations “from nearly every continent” attended the online forum shows just how much traction the idea of multipolarity has gained.

Lavrov noted that new global centers are emerging in Eurasia, the Indo-Pacific region, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, and that these nations are pursuing independent policies guided by national interests.

According to the foreign minister, developing nations have been steadily expanding their share in the global economy over the past three decades, while the role of the G7 nations has been diminishing.

He also hailed the fact that more and more countries have expressed interest in joining international groups “of the new kind,” such as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

Russia, Lavrov explained, champions a multipolar world order based on respect for the UN charter, and a “balance of interests” as opposed to a “balance of fear.”

President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Moscow will not abide by the “so-called rules” invented and imposed by “certain countries.”

Also on Friday, while addressing members of the SCO, Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu claimed that the West is putting “unprecedented pressure” on independent countries to pit them against Russia and China, and undermine the rise of the multipolar world.

On Monday, Lavrov called for the expansion of Asian, African, and Latin American representation in the UN Security Council, arguing that the West is over-represented in the international body.

April 29, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | Leave a comment

ABC News censors presidential candidate’s vaccine comments

RT | April 28, 2023

ABC News has censored an interview with US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – Joe Biden’s top challenger for the Democratic Party’s 2024 nomination – by removing his allegedly false assertions about Covid-19 vaccines.

“We should note that during our conversation, Kennedy made false claims about the Covid-19 vaccines,” ABC anchor Linsey Davis said on Thursday after airing her interview with the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy.

She added that Kennedy made “misleading claims” contrary to research findings about a link between certain vaccines and autism. “We’ve used our editorial judgment in not including portions of that exchange in our interview.”

Davis sparred with Kennedy during the interview, saying his past claims about vaccines causing autism had been totally “debunked.” As the candidate began to explain why he believes major public health agencies, such as the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), are “captive,” his comments were cut off. The clip then cuts to Davis pointing out that some of Kennedy’s family members disagree with his views on vaccines.

“I’m just curious, if you’re not able to get your own sisters to vote for you for president, how would you make that appeal to American voters?” the host asked. Kennedy replied that he has a large family with a tradition of openly discussing issues on which they disagree. “That’s something that I think is a lesson we ought to learn for this country. We can disagree with each other without hating each other, without marginalizing each other.” Davis shot back, “I’m just using your family’s words to call you dangerous, rather than saying that’s not like the typical family that might have disagreements around the kitchen table.”

Kennedy noted on Friday that federal law prohibits broadcasters from censoring presidential candidates.

“Instead of journalism, the public saw a hatchet job,” he said. “Instead of information, they got defamation and unsheathed pharma propaganda. Americans deserve to hear the full interview so they can make up their own minds. How can democracy function without a free and unbiased press?”

A Fox News poll released on Thursday showed that although President Biden’s rivals for the Democratic Party’s nomination are longshot candidates, Kennedy is gaining ground. While 62% of Democrat voters want the party to nominate Biden for re-election, 19% favor Kennedy. A previous poll indicated that Kennedy was supported by 14% of Democrats after entering the race earlier this month.

Kennedy is the nephew of John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963, and the son of presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, who was shot dead on the campaign trail in 1968. He has pledged to end the “corrupt merger between state and corporate power” and has spoken out against Washington’s policy of using military power to enforce global hegemony. “The Ukraine war is the final collapse of the neocons’ short-lived ‘American Century,’” he said earlier this month.

April 29, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries